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I don't think profitability is what matters here. They simply are burning way too much money for an R&D phase. Are they building giant factories or something?

asadlionpk 4y ago
You have to agree the tech involved is complex.
- stephc_int13 4y ago
  Sure. But to put things in perspective, the entire R&D budget for the first iPhone was $250M, and I don't think it was highly optimized for cost. 10B is 40x higher. And this is an average year, for an unfinished product that did not even start from scratch (they started with the Occulus Rift, a pretty advanced prototype)
  - asadlionpk 4y ago
    in my mind, amazing R&D product is either = low budget + passionate people + toxic environment to work in longterm OR = high budget + leetcoders + cushy working environment
  - dnissley 4y ago
    The way I think of this is if Apple had to invent the smartphone when only desktop and laptop computers existed. No dumbphones. No mp3 players. No other second rate smartphones. The budget would far exceed $250M if that was the case, since so many of those things had resulted in supply chains for commodity parts that could, worst case, be modified slightly to fit Apple's needs. (Not that they didn't invent anything in order to produce the iPhone -- IIRC the glass screen in particular was a new feature not seen on any device before. Also they did a lot of legwork themselves e.g. the anodized aluminum device body that came from previous work on ipod / macbook).
threeseed 4y ago
They have acquired quite a number of VR studios. And they were pretty far down the road in building their own SOCs before deciding to double down on their partnership with Qualcomm. I don't think it's fair to compare Meta against companies like Apple when they have up until now been almost entirely a software company.
colinmhayes 4y ago
> They simply are burning way too much money for an R&D phase. I mean they're still making money. Mark doesn't give a shit about short term stock movement, why would he care about the division that he believes is the future of the company and maybe society losing money?

asadlionpk 4y ago

You have to agree the tech involved is complex.

stephc_int13 4y ago
Sure. But to put things in perspective, the entire R&D budget for the first iPhone was $250M, and I don't think it was highly optimized for cost. 10B is 40x higher. And this is an average year, for an unfinished product that did not even start from scratch (they started with the Occulus Rift, a pretty advanced prototype)
- asadlionpk 4y ago
  in my mind, amazing R&D product is either = low budget + passionate people + toxic environment to work in longterm OR = high budget + leetcoders + cushy working environment
- dnissley 4y ago
  The way I think of this is if Apple had to invent the smartphone when only desktop and laptop computers existed. No dumbphones. No mp3 players. No other second rate smartphones. The budget would far exceed $250M if that was the case, since so many of those things had resulted in supply chains for commodity parts that could, worst case, be modified slightly to fit Apple's needs. (Not that they didn't invent anything in order to produce the iPhone -- IIRC the glass screen in particular was a new feature not seen on any device before. Also they did a lot of legwork themselves e.g. the anodized aluminum device body that came from previous work on ipod / macbook).

threeseed 4y ago

They have acquired quite a number of VR studios. And they were pretty far down the road in building their own SOCs before deciding to double down on their partnership with Qualcomm. I don't think it's fair to compare Meta against companies like Apple when they have up until now been almost entirely a software company.

colinmhayes 4y ago

> They simply are burning way too much money for an R&D phase. I mean they're still making money. Mark doesn't give a shit about short term stock movement, why would he care about the division that he believes is the future of the company and maybe society losing money?