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Zuckerberg's leaked email on VR strategy (2015)

294 points by ppsreejith 4y ago

dusted 4y ago
To be honest, that seems to me like a totally reasonable way of looking at things. Like him or not, Mark is a bright guy and he has a good sense of both his own position and potential.
germinalphrase 4y ago
“key apps” receive a lot of focus in this email, but clearly that part of this plan is struggling.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  Microsoft Teams, Office, and Xbox. https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/11/23397251/meta-microsoft-partnership-quest-teams-office-windows-features-vr https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/11/23397251/meta-microsoft-...
blindseer 4y ago
I hadn’t seen this emails before. I’m surprised by how outward looking and myopic at the same time Zuck’s emails are, this one particularly so (the one about chat bots also comes to mind). Ask yourself where you were in 2015 and see if you can get their take on VR or AR. For me it felt like magic. Like using an iPhone for the first time. Yes, VR and AR is absolutely the future. But social communication and media communication is just a myopic view on what the possibilities are! Interactive consumption is / was where it is at. A hybrid of games + educational experience was for me the quintessential experience a la Assassin’s Creed meets walking simulator. I would love to just learn about places where I go passively with AR. I’d love to meet people and have fun stories shared via AR (as I proof read this, I’m not so sure about this but there’s potential). Facebook absolutely should have built the platform first and if they did that developers would have come to build the apps. I’m surprised with 40k to 80k on staff they weren’t able make much headway into this until the past year. Somewhat relatedly, did Zuck really write these emails in 2015? The color of the text for the date is highlighted weird. I’m surprised that the chat bot effort happened after this email. Perhaps, he figured chat bots would be a gateway to AR? I think Zuck was focused too much on the control Apple and Google have on the average person’s eyeballs / pocket and on Facebook itself. The Facebook phone was an obvious attempt at trying to pry loose but they should have just kept at it. They could have built a Google Daydream like experience around their own Facebook phone. All for the best I guess. I’m glad Facebook is failing. They have harmed more relationships with their algorithms imo than helped keep them together. The world might have been a better place if Facebook’s feed wasn’t trying to be so “engaging”.
- notyourwork 4y ago
  Amazon had a phone once too. Not sure doubling down on a phone is the right choice either.
  - peanuty1 4y ago
    The Fire Phone was expensive due to its 3D feature and had dated specs. Amazon also gave up on it very quickly.
    - justapassenger 4y ago
      Amazon gave up for very good reason. From what I heard from people working on it, sales were, well, not impressive. Like in hundreds of units.
  - pishpash 4y ago
    Home devices were a nearer-term alternative, not sure why AR/VR had to be the thing.
- throwaw20221107 4y ago
  I would love to just learn about places where I go passively with AR. It won't go down this way. Wikipedia for AR will never happen. More likely it'll be thousands of ads and other crap.
  - MrLeap 4y ago
    If there's a good AR headset you'd have to be able to stop me (and a million other people) from forcing wikipedia onto the device. That might be a harder technical challenge than actually making the AR headset.
    - throwaw20221107 4y ago
      Sure but the vision/nlp models required to enable context-sensitive vision apps (i.e. an app to "give me facts from Wikipedia about what I'm seeing"), those models are closed and owned by big companies like Google and OpenAI. The previous two computing revolutions "personal computers" and "apps/websites" were enabled by the openness of the OS and the openness of TCP/IP and browser vendors, respectively. If the next "AR/VR" revolution depends on complex vision models, there's no guarantee they'll be open for independent devs. And judging by the last few years, it's highly likely they won't be. BTW I think there's good reason they don't release GPT-3 or DALL-E or PaLM or whatever. That shit is dangerous. Edit: ok you can hack the hardware to let you run the models or make the necessary network calls to run them. That's still way different than Wikipedia which is a first class webapp where you don't have to hack anything to use it.
digdugdirk 4y ago
Is it just me, or is this email wildly unpersuasive? Is this a side effect of the control structure he wields over the organization, therefore he doesn't actually need to build consensus towards a common goal? It seems to fall into a weird in-between communication style - not quite elevator pitch, not quite status update. I'm honestly confused why/how a major CEO communicates in this way.
- achrono 4y ago
  +1. Also, for a leaked internal email it's awfully quiet on numbers. If you didn't tell me this was Zuck, I would probably have assumed this is a vantage point essay from a bright MBA student, certainly not Zuck himself!
  - nxte 4y ago
    I have to assume this was hardly edited or revised, right? Just fired straight past Zuck's assistants and into everyone's inboxes.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- drstewart 4y ago
  I think it's well written but ultimately it just reads as: "VR is the next big thing and we should try to own every part of it. To do that we should be the best at it. And we can be the best by building or buying as needed." Like... okay? There's nothing particularly strategically interesting there.
- throwaw20221107 4y ago
  For me it was effective writing. Simple sentences in active voice identifying clear actors and relationships. Going to apply it to my own technical writing style. Is it a work of art? No. But he got his point across to me rather clearly. For context, I have a degree in mathematics. It certainly mirrors the informal-but-precise language you see in the field. Maybe that's why it was effective for me.
Apreche 4y ago
Not really the worst strategy. You can totally see where he was coming from. He just vastly overestimated how far VR could go in even 10 years of heavy investment, if ever. No amount of heavy investment, even for 10+ years, is going to make AR or VR as ubiquitous as mobile. You would need a headset so small and light it's not too far off from a pair of sunglasses. It needs a battery that runs all day. It needs to not get hot and burn someone's face. It needs to be fast and responsive in terms of both local processing and network data transmission. It needs to be inexpensive enough that everyone on Earth who currently has a smartphone can afford one. And, he is correct, it needs to have apps so compelling that people find hard to participate in society without one. It's not even a guaranteed thing that such a device is even possible. Even if it is, no way would it be ready for 2025, maybe not even 2035.
- melony 4y ago
  The counter argument is that they have sank billions into this with top tier optoelectronic engineers working on realizing the vision. It is about as good an effort as you can reasonably get. If they want to go further, they will have to start building out their own exotic semiconductor basic research labs. Perhaps their only mistake is not scaling up the hardware R and D earlier. One potential play is a joint venture with Apple, unpalatable yes, but they are the only other large scale consumer electronics company with the EEs and hardware talent needed to execute this. I doubt even the military and government research labs can do a better job.
  - orik 4y ago
    If there was something like a join venture between Apple & FB, it would be incredibly compelling as a software engineer interested in AR/VR to go work for them on it.
    - melony 4y ago
      They will probably pay you less than what you can get in other divisions. Nobody I know chose to work for Apple for the total compensation.
- 4y ago
mlajtos 4y ago
Never read this before, interesting view. I am pretty happy that Unity doesn’t have Meta prefix and can be used to create unified multi-platform XR experiences.
- tommoor 4y ago
  Unity stock is suffering particularly badly though, perhaps Meta still has time to swoop in and take it over (I also hope they don't)
everdrive 4y ago
>Beyond the sheer value we can deliver to humanity by accelerating and shaping the development of this technology This email had me somewhat upset until I remembered that Meta is floundering and failing badly. It seems self-evident to Zuckerberg that broadly-adopted AR/VR would be an automatic positive for humanity. I can't imagine a world in which AR/VR is a positive. I don't see any reason for VR/AR to be seen a positive development.
- tjohns 4y ago
  I can't comment on Facebook's vision for VR, but speaking more broadly... During the pandemic, VRChat let me reconnect with friends that I hadn't seen in person for 1-2 years. Combined with body tracking modules (so you can walk around fluidly), the experience can be extremely immersive, like you're in the same room with someone. When I upgraded to a Valve Index and gave my older headset to my roommate, he later mentioned that VRChat and the social experiences he had on there saved him from a deep depression brought on by isolation during the pandemic. I'd consider that an extremely positive experience.
  - dinvlad 4y ago
    That's actually a very good point (though still a niche market). For those of us having relatives/friends in distant places (or colleagues in the global workforce), this could be immensely useful. I do think this is far from a ubiquitous need though, outside of troubled times/environments like the global pandemic.
    - fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
      There are about 280 million first-generation international migrants. That’s a group that is highly likely to benefit from close social interaction online. And more broadly, the majority of the world population uses some kind of internet communication and many of them would probably use a higher-fidelity version if it became available. To give an example from a more mature technology, the share of internet communication happening over video increases each year (this trend predates the pandemic). Personally, I’ve found that VR takes away a lot of the awkward downsides of Zoom socializing. I’m pretty optimistic it’ll be popular when it matures.
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headsoup 4y ago
I think the fundamental problem they'll face is that VR won't be accepted beyond temporary engagement. You just can't expect people to exist in a virtual environment and ignore their actual physical reality for any length of time. I would think our brains trying to maintain a virtual and physical reality at once for any length of time must get quite stressful. The virtual environment will be first to go (yes even augmented reality). People want to still be connected to 'reality' and Mark's virtual goals create too much friction with reality for the sake of his geeky wet dream, at least to meet his scale for success.
- chaostheory 4y ago
  This is why AR is the holy grail for all of the companies in this space. It just augments reality instead of replacing it
  - rvnx 4y ago
    You see it this way because you are thinking in terms of an AR headset playing audio or visuals. In a really well executed dystopian future, the AR glasses and headphones should not even exist and the thoughts should directly be injected in your brain. You implant yourself a chip like Neuralink and Neuralink sends you electric impulses that gives you answers. And then, Facebook and Google can directly read your mind and inject you ads. Of course, they are going to respect your privacy "your thoughts never leave your local device" (except in the case of terrorism, and other related thoughts). You are hungry, Google knows it, and suggests you a place to eat. What a lovely future.
    - germinalphrase 4y ago
      Dystopias are easy to envision and to craft as dismissals. Augmented reality is already here in the auditory realm. I can easily imagine dozens of ways to enhance my experience of the world without all the coercion and abuse you fear.
      - dinvlad 4y ago
chaostheory 4y ago
For anyone still complaining about this pivot, ad revenue is already drying up due to new privacy laws and initiatives by platform owners like Apple. XR (AR/VR) offers a potential future for meta even though the hurdles are hard
- zmmmmm 4y ago
  it's interesting in that it reinforces both sides of the argument .... it supports both that he's a crazy zealot driving Facebook off a cliff, but also that he's a visionary because exactly the things he was worried about and foretold are coming true. Ironically, the worse Facebook does financially the more vindicated he is. Which version you choose to believe is probably highly dependent on your own prior subjective opinions, as both are plausible.
  - chaostheory 4y ago
    If Facebook didn’t pivot, it would die a slow yahoo death. What’s the point of that if you’re a founder still in control? I think the chance to be a major player in a paradigm change is a worthy risk
- peanuty1 4y ago
  TikTok is also eating their lunch.
  - dinvlad 4y ago
    I think if anything, this shows that unfortunately teens would probably be the first truly mass market to want this.
    - chaostheory 4y ago
      I think you’re right. The younger you are, the more open minded you are to new things and concepts; instead of hanging onto the safety of the familiar and comfortable. The older generations tend to play it safer and boring in nearly every aspect of their lives
tmsh 4y ago
https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/13/facebook-mulled-multi-billion-dollar-acquisition-of-unity-book-claims/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/13/facebook-mulled-multi-bill... I wonder why Unity didn't agree to be acquired. Say what you want about Meta they were pretty good at acquiring companies.
zmmmmm 4y ago
Seems like this has been public for several years. Nonetheless, it's quite eye opening to read the strategy so openly laid out. And in some ways quite a testimony to Zuckerberg that other than obviously failing to acquire Unity (why?) they have essentially executed on all the other elements of that plan consistently now for 7 years straight.
- nickstinemates 4y ago
  Could not agree more. Laid out plainly, marching orders clear.
- throwaw20221107 4y ago
  Yeah, seems almost like the downfall was its openness. It's almost a kind of hubris -- he didn't need to articulate his plan in detail via a traceable comm like email, should've been more secretive. Maybe Zuck should've taken a more "first you must deceive your allies" approach.
  - brutusborn 4y ago
    I don't understand, why is openness an issue? Is it because it makes aquisitions more expensive?
    - throwaw20221107 4y ago
      "Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.”
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
nickstinemates 4y ago
I read this one of the previous times it was posted. I don't have a strong opinion about the metaverse either way. However, this email on strategy is an example of something I haven't seen in any startup I have ever worked at. Usually the information is available in pieces in various places, PRD's, value statements, mission statements, whatever. The pessimist in me also believes that most of the people I have worked with wouldn't even take the time to read such an email. Anyway, all of this to say, I appreciate that it leaked and learned that there are people communicating in a way I wish companies I had worked for communicated.
yalogin 4y ago
The problem is he could t think outside of his social networking box. He thought a clone of second space would be the killer feature. That is the reason for his troubles. I cannot understand how he expects people to live in that device and much less get the stickiness of a phone/apps
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  Did you mean Second Life? In any event, I may be too old but the failing of VR in my mind is that it further isolates us from nature, from reality. The successfully future tech should be tech that disappears, allowing us to once again reconvene with nature. I don't want the Matrix or the Holodeck all day long.
  - yalogin 4y ago
    I fully agree with you. Also I did mean second life
fortran77 4y ago
Just think: if he had bet his company on blockchain instead, he'd be laying off 80% of his company instead of 12% of it.
throwaway23597 4y ago
Y'know, this letter makes a lot of sense to me. It's an awfully large bet to make, though. If the bet fails, they might as well just become a dividend paying company, because they admit that they don't really have many growth opportunities otherwise.
LarsDu88 4y ago
You can really understand here that Zuckerberg really understands his business. He knew in 2015, that if Facebook didn't have a platform it controlled, it would suffer down the line. We are almost a decade out, but what he predicted has come to pass and Apple is now squeezing the juice out of Meta. I don't think Zuckerberg is wrong about VR at a certain level. I think VR gaming makes regular gaming obsolete in many ways. But instead of making Oculus the "XBox" of the future, Mark decided that it was the "everything" of the future. A sort of wishful thinking that these headsets would replace the cellphone. The cellphone fits in your pocket, watches fit on your wrist, and earbuds fit in your ears. A VR headset would have to be sunglasses size and even then they'd still be less ubiquitous than the Apple Watch. The problem is not the vision, but the amount of money being spent. If Oculus had stayed independent, I can guarantee we'd have better (probably more gaming) oriented content.
- TigeriusKirk 4y ago
  >A VR headset would have to be sunglasses size From what I've gathered, this is the Meta AR target for the early 2030s. What we see now are intended to be the steps along that road.
- triknomeister 4y ago
  The sheer cost of VR platforms would make it non-ubiquitous. People in developing countries use mobile because it is that versatile, and that is why mobile is the king currently. I don't see how AR/VR platforms will ever replace that in next 10-15 years.
- rish1_2 4y ago
  you basically hit the spot. He never realized the phone with it's size and fit factor in everyday life cannot be replaced by a headset that is so intrusive. It's good for games but anything else likely a hassle to the norm.
  - rish1_2 4y ago
    If I had to take a guess what will replace the iPhone it will likely be new sci-fi tech that makes the cell into a piece of see through slab of glass that is touch based. If this is possible to do in the future, I think people will start buying that. Until then iPhone will reign supreme!
dinvlad 4y ago
Maybe it's just my view, but I see the usefulness of FB as a platform that allows people to keep in touch or find others and then meet IRL. There's no replacement for a real interaction. The big downside of that though is those who don't want to use the same medium, can't anymore plan to be real-life social within the same circles. I don't think VR would improve on this use case, especially for the mass market of "casual" FB users. AR could be useful however, for more of a "contextual" help while actually doing RL.
gfodor 4y ago
Zuck’s thesis is going to be vindicated in a few months and he will end up being basically spot on in terms of ubiquity in 10 years. The pivot to catch up conceptually with Apple is going to be tough but doable.
- johnwheeler 4y ago
  What? How?
  - brookside 4y ago
    When Apple releases their headset.
    - nemo44x 4y ago
      Who wants to wear this and why?
      - gfodor 4y ago
        It will have similar usage patterns as your watch (all day wear not all day use) but will be AirPods for the eyes via a flip down visor. (Imo)
        nemo44x 4y ago
        Again who wants to wear that? Normal people don’t.
        zmmmmm 4y ago
        Who wants to wear any type of eye glasses ... nobody. But they do! Because they have utility. I can't understand why you wouldn't want to be able to wear a perfectly normal pair of glasses that have the additional feature that you can pull up your phone screen at any moment without actually getting it out of your pocket.
        4y ago
tkk23 4y ago
Why does Zuckerberg focus on VR when WeChat has shown how much more of a platform Facebook could be?
- pigiou 4y ago
  I am not familiar with WeChat, could you provide any cool feature as an example?
wfh 4y ago
Loading this page with JavaScript disabled is a very bizarre experience!
stephc_int13 4y ago
I read that as naive, something I would expect from a business school student. Here is the biggest flaw in my opinion: VR/AR is presented as the future of computing without questions. This is so obvious that this assumption should be questioned from many angles. Aside from this, in my opinion, such a large company should NEVER show a product that is not convincing. Keep it in the labs until it's good or at least cool enough for a demo like Boston Dynamics is doing.
- nemo44x 4y ago
  Yeah, you wound think he’d at least ponder why porn hadn’t adopted it at the very least. Not to be crude but that’s the killer app if there was on. Or at least the trailblazer line it has been for so much of the internet and before.
  - xboxnolifes 4y ago
    > Yeah, you wound think he’d at least ponder why porn hadn’t adopted it at the very least It has...
    - conradfr 4y ago
      If even porn failed to make it really mainstream...
aortega 4y ago
I believe he's mostly right except that he need a hardware breakthrough, the same way mobile phones had a hardware breakthrough in 2007 with the invention of good enough LCD touch screens and batteries. VR and AR is much harder but not impossible.
keithnz 4y ago
VR doesn't seem as useful as AR, and AR isn't going to be a thing till we get something "wearable" in the sense you are happy wearing it like glasses / a watch.
- dvngnt_ 4y ago
  you can do both. i dont want to play AR games
- zmmmmm 4y ago
  Come back in 2-3 months when we see what Apple has announced. Supposedly very much in this vein.
johnwheeler 4y ago
I recently made a relatively large (to me) purchase of meta stock with the crash. I also bought the quest pro. I’ve been using it everyday mostly to play games. Sometimes I go in horizon, but there’s not enough interesting worlds to visit.
modzu 4y ago
if you find this interesting, you might be interested in the book it came from, "the history of the future" by blake harris
jijji 4y ago
reading this it seems like he lives in a vacuum surrounded by people who either lack vision or understanding of what the future really will look like in ten years... it's a sad read actually. As if brain implants will be the next facebook, it is an unrealistic goal, but also not an accurate vision of the future world from an engineers perspective.
digitalsushi 4y ago
Picture a next-great-leap technology with footings in this very real effort underway right now ... you can privately view and listen to anything in your eyes and ears, and let's include silent input with a last big of future technology. Private conversations with people only you know. And everyone else in the room is having theirs at the same time. I can be making a table in my woodshop. I can have three friends watching from a half world away, giving me feedback or even safety tips. They're my closest circle. They're my family. We're always there. Wake up, first thought is "who's awake? keep me company while I get coffee". What happens to what we call families right now, when they are further away than the ones living in our thoughts? Could this be a kintsugi moment for social networking? That the lonely amongst us can find a tribe of real humans, to quash the qualm, to salve the screaming silence? Or does it dig deeper the divide?
ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
I have a saying: Software is eating the world but hardware creates the new world. Without a hardware play, no company can become the next Apple. Whether VR/AR is the right paradigm though, is yet to be seen. I also think Facebook will not be the one to crack this. Existing companies usually don't bring the next wave of the world.
- batguano 4y ago
  Um, iPhone?
rish1_2 4y ago
If I were in Zuckerberg's position, I would leave the Oculus to gaming and let it mature there and maybe sell it similar to industrial use cases. I would then focus on Rust and typescript and create an OS on the phone that allows you to run Rust and Typescript apps. Likely a typescript bridge to rust. Now you have a whole ecosystem and developer community waiting to disrupt the mobile device with the two most popular languages. They will naturally build for the web and then for the Rust phone that runs typescript Natively like the React Native JSI for rust. Zuck if you're reading this, this is how you survive and beat Android and Apple. Use the power of developers who will innovate the shit out of the system that will likely not exist fast enough on the other two phones
nitwit005 4y ago
Imagine you have a business cutting up ice in the mountains, and shipping it to hot places. The refrigerator is invented, threatening your bottom line. Is the right thing to do to go into refrigeration? Nope. You don't know anything about it, and have no experience with manufacturing. The truth is, you should get the money you can out of your firm and wind it down. You could try to buy a refrigerator business of course, but would you be a competent owner? What you know is shipping ice. None of the executives at Facebook knew anything about making a good VR social experience. They seem to have created an expensive failure, and that isn't a surprising result. They do know a lot about content moderation, and from what I can tell, that part was extremely well thought out.
qwertyuiop_ 4y ago
Marry VR with Bollywood & Tollywood dance numbers using VR cameras and they will sell like hot cakes in India. https://youtu.be/_0uZAQyxT_U https://youtu.be/_0uZAQyxT_U
laweijfmvo 4y ago
Everything he says on the email makes sense, except 7 years later I don’t believe anyone other than Apple will be able to build realistic AR hardware any time soon, and no one will care that Meta was first with their platform. Apple can easily build the platform/ecosystem on top of what they already have overnight, once their hardware has cornered the market.
- karmakaze 4y ago
  There is some first mover advantage, but in the long run, it's true--no one will care who was first. Apple has a good shot at a general consumer platform, not so much for gaming. Microsoft or Valve/Steam has a shot at gaming, and maybe Sony. For business, MS again has a shot as does Meta. HP can access some parts of it but I can't say they have good experience in delivering the software part of a platform.
tuyguntn 4y ago
One of my friend works in a division related to VR at Meta. He is constantly battling to close the tickets, build new features (defined by someone). My gut feeling says, innovation doesn't come from closing already defined tasks, it should come from calm, relaxed, curious explorations
- MrLeap 4y ago
  There's wisdom in your gut. To go further, I suspect corporate hierarchies become battlefields and torturemills because of trust issues at scale. Edicts and objectives come down from on high, but how does the top of mount meta, brain that it aspires to be, detect what the tips of the fingers are touching? A lattice of KPI's, gantt charts, and managers sewn together into a ghoulish nervous system, each link holding a knife to the throat of the next. None of this apparatus has many tools evaluating the quality and intensity that someone is curiously relaxed. If you force the tools to try and perform this task, you end up sending daily emails asking people to report their current level of relation and curiosity, but in a way that obfuscates what you're asking. This is so you can stack rank them based on how relaxed and curious they are. So when you fire those who are the least relaxed and curious the aggregate measure bubbles up and you can be an industry leader at these things. The fuel for the fire extinguishes it.
nunez 4y ago
I wonder if Mark thought we would have cheaper or more-accessible headsets by now. The real danger in all of this is Apple coming out with their rumored glasses. If they do that, they will capture the platform that FB will be subservient to.
jjfoooo6 4y ago
The odd piece of this is characterizing VR as a bridge to AR from the user's perspective. An AR that is out of the way when you don't want it is somewhat plausible, but for most people the idea of strapping a VR headset to your face and completely blocking off the outside world is a nightmare. How do you get from one to the other?
- zmmmmm 4y ago
  the Quest Pro is a literal manifestation of how they are trying to do that - so called, mixed reality.
jjfoooo6 4y ago
"once you have a good VR / AR system, you no longer need to buy phones or TV's or many other physical objects" I'd really love to know what "other physical objects" Zuckerberg has in mind here.
Animats 4y ago
He really did have the Hyperreality vision.[1] "Our vision is that VR / AR will be the next major computing platform after mobile in about 10 years. It can be even more ubquitous than mobile - especially once we reach AR - since you can always have it on." [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJg02ivYzSs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJg02ivYzSs
PaulHoule 4y ago
The most interesting approach to VR from my point of view is to turn it inside out and use projectors and similar tricks to merge characters and settings with the real world. The army has a 40 foot dome that they project images onto to train soldiers to use Stinger missiles. Some friends of mine did an art project where you go into a "time blender" which directs you into six different rooms with different experiences, the "time blender" they built wasn't up to the standard of the rooms so I am thinking of how to make a mini version of that dome. I have been talking for a year about projecting a video game character as a Pepper's Ghost and doing a sketch comedy routine with it, I really have to get off my ass and do it (maybe make a little pepper's ghost fairy) even if it's almost impossible for a schizoid like me to be consistently funny.
kevinventullo 4y ago
Here’s a hypothetical: what if Facebook had taken all that money and blind effort invested in VR over the last decade and instead fully committed to creating a competitor to Android/iPhone? I think that strategy would have had a better chance of success.
- plaguepilled 4y ago
  I came here to post something analogous. Imagine if Google had to actually compete with Meta on the same platform. There would naturally be an incentive to lower telemetry (so that Apple can't just score an easy win again).
- zmmmmm 4y ago
  Well we know how that goes because Microsoft essentially did that.
czhu12 4y ago
Just to chime in here on a real usecase for VR that I would absolutely 100% pay a load of money for: I love traveling, and I'm fully WFH, so I can technically travel 365 days of the year, but the lack of a monitor basically makes it impossible to get anything done. My 15" macbook simply isn't enough. It's kinda gotten to the point where I only do roadtrips around California so I can throw a monitor in the back of my car. If instead of dragging around a monitor with me, I can throw a headset that is as good (resolution, battery life, latency, etc), this would be something I'd be willing to easily pay thousands for. I have a quest 2, so i know how far we are from this in terms of resolution, latency, comfort, battery life, but, figured I'd throw this comment in.
- MisterSandman 4y ago
  What about a portable monitor? There are plenty decent ones on the market that go up to 17"
  - xboxnolifes 4y ago
    If a 15" macbook is not enough, I doubt an extra 2" is going to cut it. OP probably has a 24"-32" main monitor they are accustomed to using.
    - MisterSandman 4y ago
      I've always felt like it's about having a second screen, as opposed to a larger screen. Using your laptop + monitor effective doubles your screen real estate regardless of the size of the monitor.
- prewett 4y ago
  It's not VR, but there's a whole bunch of high-dpi 15 inch portable "gaming" monitors out there for $300 or so. I bought one a couple years ago for an Intel NUC, and the whole thing is about as thick as a laptop. I've carried both my MBP and the montitor (and the NUC plus a mouse and a tiny keyboard) around in a regular Jansport bag.
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johndhi 4y ago
Everything he says except the second paragraph seems spot on to me. But I'm worried (for him I guess) that he's ignoring lots of evidence that VR just can't work - like, it's natural seeming in theory but every time it has been done it makes our brains and stomachs confused.
planetsprite 4y ago
He keeps saying AR/VR but Facebook has made no efforts in the AR space, which seems to be a more realistic model for his metaverse than VR.
- strulovich 4y ago
  The Quest Pro is a step towards AR. It’s what is known as pass through AR. There’s also work that was publically discussed about getting real “AR in your glasses” by Meta. The technology is just more far out.
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raywu 4y ago
I really like Ben Thompson's position in VR adoption - he compares it to the PC adoption. It was enterprise first, then consumers. Users learned how to use a PC at work, and once the price drops enough, they bring one home. Thompson was high up on the Microsoft / Meta VR deal. IMO Zuck has a great grasp of the trajectory of VR/AR in 2015. Meta is singlehandedly trying to will it into a common place. To some extent, they had succeeded way more than a lot of other commenters give them credits for. VR is way far prevalent than it was 2-3 years ago. Oculus Quest 2 certainly wasn't driving the instant paradigm shift like the introduction of an iPhone in 2007 (15 or so years ago). Though you'd argue that precursors to iPhones were WAP phones, Blackberry's. They laid the ground work (Blackberry was also an enterprise-first adoption). As an interface, handheld devices are much closer to our familiarity with PC so the jump wasn't huge. Plus it has a killer use case -- everyone needs a phone. I am very impressed by the clear vision in 2015 that we're still seeing it play out in front of our eyes in the VR/AR/Mixed Reality space. What hasn't happened or wasn't mentioned the killer use case -- the utility why people would need to be in VR/AR/XR mode.
- WA 4y ago
  On the other hand, I’m reminded of this talk: https://idlewords.com/talks/web_design_first_100_years.htm https://idlewords.com/talks/web_design_first_100_years.htm The web and smartphone landscape in 50 years might very well look quite similar to what we have today. VR will remain a niche and most people will carry around a smartphone with even more capabilities.
imposter 4y ago
Smart fella
QuadrupleA 4y ago
This email makes such a bold assumption - that VR will play out like a repeat of smartphones. Or that some "next big platform" will. Is that guaranteed? Cars, houses, aircraft, boats, bicycles - all have mostly kept their basic form factors for decades, once developed and optimized. I'm dubious that VR will ever be much more than a game platform. Certainly not a substitute for physical life. Things you can't do in VR: - have a normal tactile response to objects - feel the acceleration of a vehicle - feel the warmth of a fire - eat a good meal - eat a good meal with friends - buy a coffee and get a buzz - enjoy the smell of caramelizing onions - get a lifesaving surgery - have sex - feel a comforting arm on your shoulder - do something intricate with your hands and fingers, like carving something into a piece of wood with a nail; even picking up the nail in VR will be hard, let alone the subtle movements, grips and holds, and tactile feedback we take for granted - experience nature, animals, ecosystems, and interact with them (as they really are, not cutesy programmed versions)
- maximus-decimus 4y ago
  > - have sex Let's be honest, they're totally gonna make AR glasses that deep-fakes your wife into your favorite waifu while you have sex.
  - donmcronald 4y ago
    It’ll be full VR. With the headset on you’ll be Hugh Hefner, but with the headset off it’s just you, this (https://youtu.be/qobhDJ_vEOc https://youtu.be/qobhDJ_vEOc), and the advertisers selling anti-depressants.
- carstenhag 4y ago
  - Feel acceleration of a vehicle This is wrong, I know of a project where you sit in the backseat of a car, put a VR headset on that's connected to the car. There is a driver and you are on a special track in real life. Acceleration is real, but on the VR thingy you are elsewhere. Not sure if it was ever released.
  - 4y ago
Aperocky 4y ago
VR and AR are not the future, tech be there or not. Most people have reached their mental connection quota today, and doesn't want more. It could be fancy, seamless, and at the same time nobody cares. It's not 20 years ago where I'd read a shampoo bottle out of boredom.
- lpapez 4y ago
  > It's not 20 years ago where I'd read a shampoo bottle out of boredom. I totally forgot about this, but damn I did that regularly as well.
shmerl 4y ago
It is not a wrong idea that VR / AR will be important, but estimate of 10 years was way off. It's not anywhere close yet.
- zmmmmm 4y ago
  I'm not so sure - do you not think Nreal Air [0] is close? And you can buy it now for a few hundred $. Two more years evolution and this could be very close to a mainstream viable thing. [0] https://www.nreal.ai/air/ https://www.nreal.ai/air/
peacefulhat 4y ago
Facebook could have bought Owlchemy Labs or the Rec Room team really early and turn that into "the metaverse." Instead it looks like it was designed by people who have never played a video game. His vision makes sense and the headsets are great.
seydor 4y ago
> It is more natural than mobile this thinking is colossally misguided. People bought more laptops than desktops because they are less intrusive with real life. They bought even more phones because they are even less intrusive. A VR set is 100% obstructive , so it doesnt fit this category. it is something you use when you can "depart from real life". If something like that is the goal, the nearest thing was something like google glasses. it would have to be very useful for people to tolerate wearing glasses practically all the time (You wouldnt want to be carrying the glasses on hand). The form factor of a phone is that of a book or notebook, and that has been favored by people for thousands of years because our hands are expressive. glasses are generally a nuissance that is tolerated because of vision issues. If the goal is really immersion with real life, it seems that neural interfaces a more likely candidate and that s the direction they should be going (or at least make something more mobile than mobile)
- h4n1 4y ago
  I agree with VR being obstructive and awkward, but what percentage of the population would be okay with hooking a computer directly into their brains, let alone a facebook-controlled computer?
  - seydor 4y ago
    I like their wrist controller, would love to use that for typing instead of the awkward touchscreen i m using now. If it has a lot of utility, people would use it. Frankly, it is the only wristwatch i need
nprateem 4y ago
The idea clearly has potential but it's the execution that's lacking. In 20-30 years someone will have developed a headband or implant that allows direct sensory manipulation and VR/AR will be the next frontier. Until then, throwing money at increasingly elaborate glasses is just a waste. They should just focus on the platform and abandon the glasses for now.
lancewiggs 4y ago
Can you imagine this email from Steve Jobs? Where is the end user? Where’s is the joy? Where is the reason why people are going to love this technology? Where is the practical example? Instead it’s all business, but that business is worthless if you don’t start with the reason people want to use, embrace and even love your product or service.
- Maxion 4y ago
  Yep, all business talk and generic tech hype. It's no surprise that it is failing if they approached this problem from a business and tech orientation, rather than looking at it from the customers point of view. What problems does VR/AR solve that would want to make one wear an AR headset all of the time? Why do I want to wear one while changing my daughters diaper, or walking my dog after work? I see no problems that it solves.
- HenriTEL 4y ago
  On point. He's trying to make a product for his business instead of the user. Edit: In addtiton it's amazing how early he identified his business weaknesses (platforms dependency and lack of innovation) yet decided to solve them in such a strange if not wrong, at least very risky way. How all those investments in AR/VR would improve innovation problems in the core business? Apple is able to innovate in his core business so it's not a company size or age problem. Instagram, whatsapp, snap and tiktok are all proofs that there's room for innovation in facebook family of apps. Moreover if you already struggle with innovation and your growth comes from the network effect of your platforms is it really a good idea to bet on such ambitious projects?
PhilipA 4y ago
It looks like the AR glasses will depend on an external compute device, like the phone. If Facebook had invested more into their phone product, they would have a much easier time to compete against Apple/Google. Funny to think that they for a small amount of their VR investment (31b) they could have bought Xiaomi which would have given them a platform to expand on.
deleted 4y ago
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erlkonig 4y ago
It seems the 2015 Zuck is limited by what's familiar to him and utterly failing to see the potential of new technology. To him, VR/AR is just a realm in which to deploy the same apps, a market to capture, annex Unity to protect themselves (at the probable expense of everyone else - glad that didn't work out). The idea of a large, shared environment as a platform for heterogeneous development seems to have never occurred to him. No vision.
type0 4y ago
Meta should be divided like AT&T 40 years ago
bullen 4y ago
As long as SteamVR does not work on a 1030 and Quest 3 is less powerful; VR will not meet it's energy requirement balance. The real metaverse is action MMO and that can run on a 5W Raspberry 4 at low resolutions.
edpichler 4y ago
Mark is smarter than I thought.

294 points by ppsreejith 4y ago

To be honest, that seems to me like a totally reasonable way of looking at things. Like him or not, Mark is a bright guy and he has a good sense of both his own position and potential.

germinalphrase 4y ago

“key apps” receive a lot of focus in this email, but clearly that part of this plan is struggling.

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
Microsoft Teams, Office, and Xbox. https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/11/23397251/meta-microsoft-partnership-quest-teams-office-windows-features-vr https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/11/23397251/meta-microsoft-...

blindseer 4y ago

I hadn’t seen this emails before. I’m surprised by how outward looking and myopic at the same time Zuck’s emails are, this one particularly so (the one about chat bots also comes to mind). Ask yourself where you were in 2015 and see if you can get their take on VR or AR. For me it felt like magic. Like using an iPhone for the first time. Yes, VR and AR is absolutely the future. But social communication and media communication is just a myopic view on what the possibilities are! Interactive consumption is / was where it is at. A hybrid of games + educational experience was for me the quintessential experience a la Assassin’s Creed meets walking simulator. I would love to just learn about places where I go passively with AR. I’d love to meet people and have fun stories shared via AR (as I proof read this, I’m not so sure about this but there’s potential). Facebook absolutely should have built the platform first and if they did that developers would have come to build the apps. I’m surprised with 40k to 80k on staff they weren’t able make much headway into this until the past year. Somewhat relatedly, did Zuck really write these emails in 2015? The color of the text for the date is highlighted weird. I’m surprised that the chat bot effort happened after this email. Perhaps, he figured chat bots would be a gateway to AR? I think Zuck was focused too much on the control Apple and Google have on the average person’s eyeballs / pocket and on Facebook itself. The Facebook phone was an obvious attempt at trying to pry loose but they should have just kept at it. They could have built a Google Daydream like experience around their own Facebook phone. All for the best I guess. I’m glad Facebook is failing. They have harmed more relationships with their algorithms imo than helped keep them together. The world might have been a better place if Facebook’s feed wasn’t trying to be so “engaging”.

notyourwork 4y ago
Amazon had a phone once too. Not sure doubling down on a phone is the right choice either.
- peanuty1 4y ago
  The Fire Phone was expensive due to its 3D feature and had dated specs. Amazon also gave up on it very quickly.
  - justapassenger 4y ago
    Amazon gave up for very good reason. From what I heard from people working on it, sales were, well, not impressive. Like in hundreds of units.
- pishpash 4y ago
  Home devices were a nearer-term alternative, not sure why AR/VR had to be the thing.
throwaw20221107 4y ago
I would love to just learn about places where I go passively with AR. It won't go down this way. Wikipedia for AR will never happen. More likely it'll be thousands of ads and other crap.
- MrLeap 4y ago
  If there's a good AR headset you'd have to be able to stop me (and a million other people) from forcing wikipedia onto the device. That might be a harder technical challenge than actually making the AR headset.
  - throwaw20221107 4y ago
    Sure but the vision/nlp models required to enable context-sensitive vision apps (i.e. an app to "give me facts from Wikipedia about what I'm seeing"), those models are closed and owned by big companies like Google and OpenAI. The previous two computing revolutions "personal computers" and "apps/websites" were enabled by the openness of the OS and the openness of TCP/IP and browser vendors, respectively. If the next "AR/VR" revolution depends on complex vision models, there's no guarantee they'll be open for independent devs. And judging by the last few years, it's highly likely they won't be. BTW I think there's good reason they don't release GPT-3 or DALL-E or PaLM or whatever. That shit is dangerous. Edit: ok you can hack the hardware to let you run the models or make the necessary network calls to run them. That's still way different than Wikipedia which is a first class webapp where you don't have to hack anything to use it.

digdugdirk 4y ago

Is it just me, or is this email wildly unpersuasive? Is this a side effect of the control structure he wields over the organization, therefore he doesn't actually need to build consensus towards a common goal? It seems to fall into a weird in-between communication style - not quite elevator pitch, not quite status update. I'm honestly confused why/how a major CEO communicates in this way.

achrono 4y ago
+1. Also, for a leaked internal email it's awfully quiet on numbers. If you didn't tell me this was Zuck, I would probably have assumed this is a vantage point essay from a bright MBA student, certainly not Zuck himself!
- nxte 4y ago
  I have to assume this was hardly edited or revised, right? Just fired straight past Zuck's assistants and into everyone's inboxes.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
drstewart 4y ago
I think it's well written but ultimately it just reads as: "VR is the next big thing and we should try to own every part of it. To do that we should be the best at it. And we can be the best by building or buying as needed." Like... okay? There's nothing particularly strategically interesting there.
throwaw20221107 4y ago
For me it was effective writing. Simple sentences in active voice identifying clear actors and relationships. Going to apply it to my own technical writing style. Is it a work of art? No. But he got his point across to me rather clearly. For context, I have a degree in mathematics. It certainly mirrors the informal-but-precise language you see in the field. Maybe that's why it was effective for me.

Apreche 4y ago

Not really the worst strategy. You can totally see where he was coming from. He just vastly overestimated how far VR could go in even 10 years of heavy investment, if ever. No amount of heavy investment, even for 10+ years, is going to make AR or VR as ubiquitous as mobile. You would need a headset so small and light it's not too far off from a pair of sunglasses. It needs a battery that runs all day. It needs to not get hot and burn someone's face. It needs to be fast and responsive in terms of both local processing and network data transmission. It needs to be inexpensive enough that everyone on Earth who currently has a smartphone can afford one. And, he is correct, it needs to have apps so compelling that people find hard to participate in society without one. It's not even a guaranteed thing that such a device is even possible. Even if it is, no way would it be ready for 2025, maybe not even 2035.

melony 4y ago
The counter argument is that they have sank billions into this with top tier optoelectronic engineers working on realizing the vision. It is about as good an effort as you can reasonably get. If they want to go further, they will have to start building out their own exotic semiconductor basic research labs. Perhaps their only mistake is not scaling up the hardware R and D earlier. One potential play is a joint venture with Apple, unpalatable yes, but they are the only other large scale consumer electronics company with the EEs and hardware talent needed to execute this. I doubt even the military and government research labs can do a better job.
- orik 4y ago
  If there was something like a join venture between Apple & FB, it would be incredibly compelling as a software engineer interested in AR/VR to go work for them on it.
  - melony 4y ago
    They will probably pay you less than what you can get in other divisions. Nobody I know chose to work for Apple for the total compensation.
4y ago

mlajtos 4y ago

Never read this before, interesting view. I am pretty happy that Unity doesn’t have Meta prefix and can be used to create unified multi-platform XR experiences.

tommoor 4y ago
Unity stock is suffering particularly badly though, perhaps Meta still has time to swoop in and take it over (I also hope they don't)

everdrive 4y ago

>Beyond the sheer value we can deliver to humanity by accelerating and shaping the development of this technology This email had me somewhat upset until I remembered that Meta is floundering and failing badly. It seems self-evident to Zuckerberg that broadly-adopted AR/VR would be an automatic positive for humanity. I can't imagine a world in which AR/VR is a positive. I don't see any reason for VR/AR to be seen a positive development.

tjohns 4y ago
I can't comment on Facebook's vision for VR, but speaking more broadly... During the pandemic, VRChat let me reconnect with friends that I hadn't seen in person for 1-2 years. Combined with body tracking modules (so you can walk around fluidly), the experience can be extremely immersive, like you're in the same room with someone. When I upgraded to a Valve Index and gave my older headset to my roommate, he later mentioned that VRChat and the social experiences he had on there saved him from a deep depression brought on by isolation during the pandemic. I'd consider that an extremely positive experience.
- dinvlad 4y ago
  That's actually a very good point (though still a niche market). For those of us having relatives/friends in distant places (or colleagues in the global workforce), this could be immensely useful. I do think this is far from a ubiquitous need though, outside of troubled times/environments like the global pandemic.
  - fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
    There are about 280 million first-generation international migrants. That’s a group that is highly likely to benefit from close social interaction online. And more broadly, the majority of the world population uses some kind of internet communication and many of them would probably use a higher-fidelity version if it became available. To give an example from a more mature technology, the share of internet communication happening over video increases each year (this trend predates the pandemic). Personally, I’ve found that VR takes away a lot of the awkward downsides of Zoom socializing. I’m pretty optimistic it’ll be popular when it matures.

deleted 4y ago

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headsoup 4y ago

I think the fundamental problem they'll face is that VR won't be accepted beyond temporary engagement. You just can't expect people to exist in a virtual environment and ignore their actual physical reality for any length of time. I would think our brains trying to maintain a virtual and physical reality at once for any length of time must get quite stressful. The virtual environment will be first to go (yes even augmented reality). People want to still be connected to 'reality' and Mark's virtual goals create too much friction with reality for the sake of his geeky wet dream, at least to meet his scale for success.

chaostheory 4y ago
This is why AR is the holy grail for all of the companies in this space. It just augments reality instead of replacing it
- rvnx 4y ago
  You see it this way because you are thinking in terms of an AR headset playing audio or visuals. In a really well executed dystopian future, the AR glasses and headphones should not even exist and the thoughts should directly be injected in your brain. You implant yourself a chip like Neuralink and Neuralink sends you electric impulses that gives you answers. And then, Facebook and Google can directly read your mind and inject you ads. Of course, they are going to respect your privacy "your thoughts never leave your local device" (except in the case of terrorism, and other related thoughts). You are hungry, Google knows it, and suggests you a place to eat. What a lovely future.
  - germinalphrase 4y ago
    Dystopias are easy to envision and to craft as dismissals. Augmented reality is already here in the auditory realm. I can easily imagine dozens of ways to enhance my experience of the world without all the coercion and abuse you fear.
    - dinvlad 4y ago

chaostheory 4y ago

For anyone still complaining about this pivot, ad revenue is already drying up due to new privacy laws and initiatives by platform owners like Apple. XR (AR/VR) offers a potential future for meta even though the hurdles are hard

zmmmmm 4y ago
it's interesting in that it reinforces both sides of the argument .... it supports both that he's a crazy zealot driving Facebook off a cliff, but also that he's a visionary because exactly the things he was worried about and foretold are coming true. Ironically, the worse Facebook does financially the more vindicated he is. Which version you choose to believe is probably highly dependent on your own prior subjective opinions, as both are plausible.
- chaostheory 4y ago
  If Facebook didn’t pivot, it would die a slow yahoo death. What’s the point of that if you’re a founder still in control? I think the chance to be a major player in a paradigm change is a worthy risk
peanuty1 4y ago
TikTok is also eating their lunch.
- dinvlad 4y ago
  I think if anything, this shows that unfortunately teens would probably be the first truly mass market to want this.
  - chaostheory 4y ago
    I think you’re right. The younger you are, the more open minded you are to new things and concepts; instead of hanging onto the safety of the familiar and comfortable. The older generations tend to play it safer and boring in nearly every aspect of their lives

tmsh 4y ago

https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/13/facebook-mulled-multi-billion-dollar-acquisition-of-unity-book-claims/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/13/facebook-mulled-multi-bill... I wonder why Unity didn't agree to be acquired. Say what you want about Meta they were pretty good at acquiring companies.

zmmmmm 4y ago

Seems like this has been public for several years. Nonetheless, it's quite eye opening to read the strategy so openly laid out. And in some ways quite a testimony to Zuckerberg that other than obviously failing to acquire Unity (why?) they have essentially executed on all the other elements of that plan consistently now for 7 years straight.

nickstinemates 4y ago
Could not agree more. Laid out plainly, marching orders clear.
throwaw20221107 4y ago
Yeah, seems almost like the downfall was its openness. It's almost a kind of hubris -- he didn't need to articulate his plan in detail via a traceable comm like email, should've been more secretive. Maybe Zuck should've taken a more "first you must deceive your allies" approach.
- brutusborn 4y ago
  I don't understand, why is openness an issue? Is it because it makes aquisitions more expensive?
  - throwaw20221107 4y ago
    "Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.”
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

nickstinemates 4y ago

I read this one of the previous times it was posted. I don't have a strong opinion about the metaverse either way. However, this email on strategy is an example of something I haven't seen in any startup I have ever worked at. Usually the information is available in pieces in various places, PRD's, value statements, mission statements, whatever. The pessimist in me also believes that most of the people I have worked with wouldn't even take the time to read such an email. Anyway, all of this to say, I appreciate that it leaked and learned that there are people communicating in a way I wish companies I had worked for communicated.

yalogin 4y ago

The problem is he could t think outside of his social networking box. He thought a clone of second space would be the killer feature. That is the reason for his troubles. I cannot understand how he expects people to live in that device and much less get the stickiness of a phone/apps

JKCalhoun 4y ago
Did you mean Second Life? In any event, I may be too old but the failing of VR in my mind is that it further isolates us from nature, from reality. The successfully future tech should be tech that disappears, allowing us to once again reconvene with nature. I don't want the Matrix or the Holodeck all day long.
- yalogin 4y ago
  I fully agree with you. Also I did mean second life

fortran77 4y ago

Just think: if he had bet his company on blockchain instead, he'd be laying off 80% of his company instead of 12% of it.

throwaway23597 4y ago

Y'know, this letter makes a lot of sense to me. It's an awfully large bet to make, though. If the bet fails, they might as well just become a dividend paying company, because they admit that they don't really have many growth opportunities otherwise.

LarsDu88 4y ago

You can really understand here that Zuckerberg really understands his business. He knew in 2015, that if Facebook didn't have a platform it controlled, it would suffer down the line. We are almost a decade out, but what he predicted has come to pass and Apple is now squeezing the juice out of Meta. I don't think Zuckerberg is wrong about VR at a certain level. I think VR gaming makes regular gaming obsolete in many ways. But instead of making Oculus the "XBox" of the future, Mark decided that it was the "everything" of the future. A sort of wishful thinking that these headsets would replace the cellphone. The cellphone fits in your pocket, watches fit on your wrist, and earbuds fit in your ears. A VR headset would have to be sunglasses size and even then they'd still be less ubiquitous than the Apple Watch. The problem is not the vision, but the amount of money being spent. If Oculus had stayed independent, I can guarantee we'd have better (probably more gaming) oriented content.

TigeriusKirk 4y ago
>A VR headset would have to be sunglasses size From what I've gathered, this is the Meta AR target for the early 2030s. What we see now are intended to be the steps along that road.
triknomeister 4y ago
The sheer cost of VR platforms would make it non-ubiquitous. People in developing countries use mobile because it is that versatile, and that is why mobile is the king currently. I don't see how AR/VR platforms will ever replace that in next 10-15 years.
rish1_2 4y ago
you basically hit the spot. He never realized the phone with it's size and fit factor in everyday life cannot be replaced by a headset that is so intrusive. It's good for games but anything else likely a hassle to the norm.
- rish1_2 4y ago
  If I had to take a guess what will replace the iPhone it will likely be new sci-fi tech that makes the cell into a piece of see through slab of glass that is touch based. If this is possible to do in the future, I think people will start buying that. Until then iPhone will reign supreme!

dinvlad 4y ago

Maybe it's just my view, but I see the usefulness of FB as a platform that allows people to keep in touch or find others and then meet IRL. There's no replacement for a real interaction. The big downside of that though is those who don't want to use the same medium, can't anymore plan to be real-life social within the same circles. I don't think VR would improve on this use case, especially for the mass market of "casual" FB users. AR could be useful however, for more of a "contextual" help while actually doing RL.

gfodor 4y ago

Zuck’s thesis is going to be vindicated in a few months and he will end up being basically spot on in terms of ubiquity in 10 years. The pivot to catch up conceptually with Apple is going to be tough but doable.

johnwheeler 4y ago
What? How?
- brookside 4y ago
  When Apple releases their headset.
  - nemo44x 4y ago
    Who wants to wear this and why?
    - gfodor 4y ago
      It will have similar usage patterns as your watch (all day wear not all day use) but will be AirPods for the eyes via a flip down visor. (Imo)
      - nemo44x 4y ago
        Again who wants to wear that? Normal people don’t.
        zmmmmm 4y ago
        Who wants to wear any type of eye glasses ... nobody. But they do! Because they have utility. I can't understand why you wouldn't want to be able to wear a perfectly normal pair of glasses that have the additional feature that you can pull up your phone screen at any moment without actually getting it out of your pocket.
        4y ago

tkk23 4y ago

Why does Zuckerberg focus on VR when WeChat has shown how much more of a platform Facebook could be?

pigiou 4y ago
I am not familiar with WeChat, could you provide any cool feature as an example?

wfh 4y ago

Loading this page with JavaScript disabled is a very bizarre experience!

stephc_int13 4y ago

I read that as naive, something I would expect from a business school student. Here is the biggest flaw in my opinion: VR/AR is presented as the future of computing without questions. This is so obvious that this assumption should be questioned from many angles. Aside from this, in my opinion, such a large company should NEVER show a product that is not convincing. Keep it in the labs until it's good or at least cool enough for a demo like Boston Dynamics is doing.

nemo44x 4y ago
Yeah, you wound think he’d at least ponder why porn hadn’t adopted it at the very least. Not to be crude but that’s the killer app if there was on. Or at least the trailblazer line it has been for so much of the internet and before.
- xboxnolifes 4y ago
  > Yeah, you wound think he’d at least ponder why porn hadn’t adopted it at the very least It has...
  - conradfr 4y ago
    If even porn failed to make it really mainstream...

aortega 4y ago

I believe he's mostly right except that he need a hardware breakthrough, the same way mobile phones had a hardware breakthrough in 2007 with the invention of good enough LCD touch screens and batteries. VR and AR is much harder but not impossible.

keithnz 4y ago

VR doesn't seem as useful as AR, and AR isn't going to be a thing till we get something "wearable" in the sense you are happy wearing it like glasses / a watch.

dvngnt_ 4y ago
you can do both. i dont want to play AR games
zmmmmm 4y ago
Come back in 2-3 months when we see what Apple has announced. Supposedly very much in this vein.

johnwheeler 4y ago

I recently made a relatively large (to me) purchase of meta stock with the crash. I also bought the quest pro. I’ve been using it everyday mostly to play games. Sometimes I go in horizon, but there’s not enough interesting worlds to visit.

modzu 4y ago

if you find this interesting, you might be interested in the book it came from, "the history of the future" by blake harris

jijji 4y ago

reading this it seems like he lives in a vacuum surrounded by people who either lack vision or understanding of what the future really will look like in ten years... it's a sad read actually. As if brain implants will be the next facebook, it is an unrealistic goal, but also not an accurate vision of the future world from an engineers perspective.

digitalsushi 4y ago

Picture a next-great-leap technology with footings in this very real effort underway right now ... you can privately view and listen to anything in your eyes and ears, and let's include silent input with a last big of future technology. Private conversations with people only you know. And everyone else in the room is having theirs at the same time. I can be making a table in my woodshop. I can have three friends watching from a half world away, giving me feedback or even safety tips. They're my closest circle. They're my family. We're always there. Wake up, first thought is "who's awake? keep me company while I get coffee". What happens to what we call families right now, when they are further away than the ones living in our thoughts? Could this be a kintsugi moment for social networking? That the lonely amongst us can find a tribe of real humans, to quash the qualm, to salve the screaming silence? Or does it dig deeper the divide?

ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago

I have a saying: Software is eating the world but hardware creates the new world. Without a hardware play, no company can become the next Apple. Whether VR/AR is the right paradigm though, is yet to be seen. I also think Facebook will not be the one to crack this. Existing companies usually don't bring the next wave of the world.

batguano 4y ago
Um, iPhone?

rish1_2 4y ago

If I were in Zuckerberg's position, I would leave the Oculus to gaming and let it mature there and maybe sell it similar to industrial use cases. I would then focus on Rust and typescript and create an OS on the phone that allows you to run Rust and Typescript apps. Likely a typescript bridge to rust. Now you have a whole ecosystem and developer community waiting to disrupt the mobile device with the two most popular languages. They will naturally build for the web and then for the Rust phone that runs typescript Natively like the React Native JSI for rust. Zuck if you're reading this, this is how you survive and beat Android and Apple. Use the power of developers who will innovate the shit out of the system that will likely not exist fast enough on the other two phones

nitwit005 4y ago

Imagine you have a business cutting up ice in the mountains, and shipping it to hot places. The refrigerator is invented, threatening your bottom line. Is the right thing to do to go into refrigeration? Nope. You don't know anything about it, and have no experience with manufacturing. The truth is, you should get the money you can out of your firm and wind it down. You could try to buy a refrigerator business of course, but would you be a competent owner? What you know is shipping ice. None of the executives at Facebook knew anything about making a good VR social experience. They seem to have created an expensive failure, and that isn't a surprising result. They do know a lot about content moderation, and from what I can tell, that part was extremely well thought out.

qwertyuiop_ 4y ago

Marry VR with Bollywood & Tollywood dance numbers using VR cameras and they will sell like hot cakes in India. https://youtu.be/_0uZAQyxT_U https://youtu.be/_0uZAQyxT_U

laweijfmvo 4y ago

Everything he says on the email makes sense, except 7 years later I don’t believe anyone other than Apple will be able to build realistic AR hardware any time soon, and no one will care that Meta was first with their platform. Apple can easily build the platform/ecosystem on top of what they already have overnight, once their hardware has cornered the market.

karmakaze 4y ago
There is some first mover advantage, but in the long run, it's true--no one will care who was first. Apple has a good shot at a general consumer platform, not so much for gaming. Microsoft or Valve/Steam has a shot at gaming, and maybe Sony. For business, MS again has a shot as does Meta. HP can access some parts of it but I can't say they have good experience in delivering the software part of a platform.

tuyguntn 4y ago

One of my friend works in a division related to VR at Meta. He is constantly battling to close the tickets, build new features (defined by someone). My gut feeling says, innovation doesn't come from closing already defined tasks, it should come from calm, relaxed, curious explorations

MrLeap 4y ago
There's wisdom in your gut. To go further, I suspect corporate hierarchies become battlefields and torturemills because of trust issues at scale. Edicts and objectives come down from on high, but how does the top of mount meta, brain that it aspires to be, detect what the tips of the fingers are touching? A lattice of KPI's, gantt charts, and managers sewn together into a ghoulish nervous system, each link holding a knife to the throat of the next. None of this apparatus has many tools evaluating the quality and intensity that someone is curiously relaxed. If you force the tools to try and perform this task, you end up sending daily emails asking people to report their current level of relation and curiosity, but in a way that obfuscates what you're asking. This is so you can stack rank them based on how relaxed and curious they are. So when you fire those who are the least relaxed and curious the aggregate measure bubbles up and you can be an industry leader at these things. The fuel for the fire extinguishes it.

nunez 4y ago

I wonder if Mark thought we would have cheaper or more-accessible headsets by now. The real danger in all of this is Apple coming out with their rumored glasses. If they do that, they will capture the platform that FB will be subservient to.

jjfoooo6 4y ago

The odd piece of this is characterizing VR as a bridge to AR from the user's perspective. An AR that is out of the way when you don't want it is somewhat plausible, but for most people the idea of strapping a VR headset to your face and completely blocking off the outside world is a nightmare. How do you get from one to the other?

zmmmmm 4y ago
the Quest Pro is a literal manifestation of how they are trying to do that - so called, mixed reality.

jjfoooo6 4y ago

"once you have a good VR / AR system, you no longer need to buy phones or TV's or many other physical objects" I'd really love to know what "other physical objects" Zuckerberg has in mind here.

Animats 4y ago

He really did have the Hyperreality vision.[1] "Our vision is that VR / AR will be the next major computing platform after mobile in about 10 years. It can be even more ubquitous than mobile - especially once we reach AR - since you can always have it on." [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJg02ivYzSs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJg02ivYzSs

PaulHoule 4y ago

The most interesting approach to VR from my point of view is to turn it inside out and use projectors and similar tricks to merge characters and settings with the real world. The army has a 40 foot dome that they project images onto to train soldiers to use Stinger missiles. Some friends of mine did an art project where you go into a "time blender" which directs you into six different rooms with different experiences, the "time blender" they built wasn't up to the standard of the rooms so I am thinking of how to make a mini version of that dome. I have been talking for a year about projecting a video game character as a Pepper's Ghost and doing a sketch comedy routine with it, I really have to get off my ass and do it (maybe make a little pepper's ghost fairy) even if it's almost impossible for a schizoid like me to be consistently funny.

kevinventullo 4y ago

Here’s a hypothetical: what if Facebook had taken all that money and blind effort invested in VR over the last decade and instead fully committed to creating a competitor to Android/iPhone? I think that strategy would have had a better chance of success.

plaguepilled 4y ago
I came here to post something analogous. Imagine if Google had to actually compete with Meta on the same platform. There would naturally be an incentive to lower telemetry (so that Apple can't just score an easy win again).
zmmmmm 4y ago
Well we know how that goes because Microsoft essentially did that.

czhu12 4y ago

Just to chime in here on a real usecase for VR that I would absolutely 100% pay a load of money for: I love traveling, and I'm fully WFH, so I can technically travel 365 days of the year, but the lack of a monitor basically makes it impossible to get anything done. My 15" macbook simply isn't enough. It's kinda gotten to the point where I only do roadtrips around California so I can throw a monitor in the back of my car. If instead of dragging around a monitor with me, I can throw a headset that is as good (resolution, battery life, latency, etc), this would be something I'd be willing to easily pay thousands for. I have a quest 2, so i know how far we are from this in terms of resolution, latency, comfort, battery life, but, figured I'd throw this comment in.

MisterSandman 4y ago
What about a portable monitor? There are plenty decent ones on the market that go up to 17"
- xboxnolifes 4y ago
  If a 15" macbook is not enough, I doubt an extra 2" is going to cut it. OP probably has a 24"-32" main monitor they are accustomed to using.
  - MisterSandman 4y ago
    I've always felt like it's about having a second screen, as opposed to a larger screen. Using your laptop + monitor effective doubles your screen real estate regardless of the size of the monitor.
prewett 4y ago
It's not VR, but there's a whole bunch of high-dpi 15 inch portable "gaming" monitors out there for $300 or so. I bought one a couple years ago for an Intel NUC, and the whole thing is about as thick as a laptop. I've carried both my MBP and the montitor (and the NUC plus a mouse and a tiny keyboard) around in a regular Jansport bag.
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johndhi 4y ago

Everything he says except the second paragraph seems spot on to me. But I'm worried (for him I guess) that he's ignoring lots of evidence that VR just can't work - like, it's natural seeming in theory but every time it has been done it makes our brains and stomachs confused.

planetsprite 4y ago

He keeps saying AR/VR but Facebook has made no efforts in the AR space, which seems to be a more realistic model for his metaverse than VR.

strulovich 4y ago
The Quest Pro is a step towards AR. It’s what is known as pass through AR. There’s also work that was publically discussed about getting real “AR in your glasses” by Meta. The technology is just more far out.

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raywu 4y ago

I really like Ben Thompson's position in VR adoption - he compares it to the PC adoption. It was enterprise first, then consumers. Users learned how to use a PC at work, and once the price drops enough, they bring one home. Thompson was high up on the Microsoft / Meta VR deal. IMO Zuck has a great grasp of the trajectory of VR/AR in 2015. Meta is singlehandedly trying to will it into a common place. To some extent, they had succeeded way more than a lot of other commenters give them credits for. VR is way far prevalent than it was 2-3 years ago. Oculus Quest 2 certainly wasn't driving the instant paradigm shift like the introduction of an iPhone in 2007 (15 or so years ago). Though you'd argue that precursors to iPhones were WAP phones, Blackberry's. They laid the ground work (Blackberry was also an enterprise-first adoption). As an interface, handheld devices are much closer to our familiarity with PC so the jump wasn't huge. Plus it has a killer use case -- everyone needs a phone. I am very impressed by the clear vision in 2015 that we're still seeing it play out in front of our eyes in the VR/AR/Mixed Reality space. What hasn't happened or wasn't mentioned the killer use case -- the utility why people would need to be in VR/AR/XR mode.

WA 4y ago
On the other hand, I’m reminded of this talk: https://idlewords.com/talks/web_design_first_100_years.htm https://idlewords.com/talks/web_design_first_100_years.htm The web and smartphone landscape in 50 years might very well look quite similar to what we have today. VR will remain a niche and most people will carry around a smartphone with even more capabilities.

imposter 4y ago

Smart fella

QuadrupleA 4y ago

This email makes such a bold assumption - that VR will play out like a repeat of smartphones. Or that some "next big platform" will. Is that guaranteed? Cars, houses, aircraft, boats, bicycles - all have mostly kept their basic form factors for decades, once developed and optimized. I'm dubious that VR will ever be much more than a game platform. Certainly not a substitute for physical life. Things you can't do in VR: - have a normal tactile response to objects - feel the acceleration of a vehicle - feel the warmth of a fire - eat a good meal - eat a good meal with friends - buy a coffee and get a buzz - enjoy the smell of caramelizing onions - get a lifesaving surgery - have sex - feel a comforting arm on your shoulder - do something intricate with your hands and fingers, like carving something into a piece of wood with a nail; even picking up the nail in VR will be hard, let alone the subtle movements, grips and holds, and tactile feedback we take for granted - experience nature, animals, ecosystems, and interact with them (as they really are, not cutesy programmed versions)

maximus-decimus 4y ago
> - have sex Let's be honest, they're totally gonna make AR glasses that deep-fakes your wife into your favorite waifu while you have sex.
- donmcronald 4y ago
  It’ll be full VR. With the headset on you’ll be Hugh Hefner, but with the headset off it’s just you, this (https://youtu.be/qobhDJ_vEOc https://youtu.be/qobhDJ_vEOc), and the advertisers selling anti-depressants.
carstenhag 4y ago
- Feel acceleration of a vehicle This is wrong, I know of a project where you sit in the backseat of a car, put a VR headset on that's connected to the car. There is a driver and you are on a special track in real life. Acceleration is real, but on the VR thingy you are elsewhere. Not sure if it was ever released.
- 4y ago

Aperocky 4y ago

VR and AR are not the future, tech be there or not. Most people have reached their mental connection quota today, and doesn't want more. It could be fancy, seamless, and at the same time nobody cares. It's not 20 years ago where I'd read a shampoo bottle out of boredom.

lpapez 4y ago
> It's not 20 years ago where I'd read a shampoo bottle out of boredom. I totally forgot about this, but damn I did that regularly as well.

shmerl 4y ago

It is not a wrong idea that VR / AR will be important, but estimate of 10 years was way off. It's not anywhere close yet.

zmmmmm 4y ago
I'm not so sure - do you not think Nreal Air [0] is close? And you can buy it now for a few hundred $. Two more years evolution and this could be very close to a mainstream viable thing. [0] https://www.nreal.ai/air/ https://www.nreal.ai/air/

peacefulhat 4y ago

Facebook could have bought Owlchemy Labs or the Rec Room team really early and turn that into "the metaverse." Instead it looks like it was designed by people who have never played a video game. His vision makes sense and the headsets are great.

seydor 4y ago

> It is more natural than mobile this thinking is colossally misguided. People bought more laptops than desktops because they are less intrusive with real life. They bought even more phones because they are even less intrusive. A VR set is 100% obstructive , so it doesnt fit this category. it is something you use when you can "depart from real life". If something like that is the goal, the nearest thing was something like google glasses. it would have to be very useful for people to tolerate wearing glasses practically all the time (You wouldnt want to be carrying the glasses on hand). The form factor of a phone is that of a book or notebook, and that has been favored by people for thousands of years because our hands are expressive. glasses are generally a nuissance that is tolerated because of vision issues. If the goal is really immersion with real life, it seems that neural interfaces a more likely candidate and that s the direction they should be going (or at least make something more mobile than mobile)

h4n1 4y ago
I agree with VR being obstructive and awkward, but what percentage of the population would be okay with hooking a computer directly into their brains, let alone a facebook-controlled computer?
- seydor 4y ago
  I like their wrist controller, would love to use that for typing instead of the awkward touchscreen i m using now. If it has a lot of utility, people would use it. Frankly, it is the only wristwatch i need

nprateem 4y ago

The idea clearly has potential but it's the execution that's lacking. In 20-30 years someone will have developed a headband or implant that allows direct sensory manipulation and VR/AR will be the next frontier. Until then, throwing money at increasingly elaborate glasses is just a waste. They should just focus on the platform and abandon the glasses for now.

lancewiggs 4y ago

Can you imagine this email from Steve Jobs? Where is the end user? Where’s is the joy? Where is the reason why people are going to love this technology? Where is the practical example? Instead it’s all business, but that business is worthless if you don’t start with the reason people want to use, embrace and even love your product or service.

Maxion 4y ago
Yep, all business talk and generic tech hype. It's no surprise that it is failing if they approached this problem from a business and tech orientation, rather than looking at it from the customers point of view. What problems does VR/AR solve that would want to make one wear an AR headset all of the time? Why do I want to wear one while changing my daughters diaper, or walking my dog after work? I see no problems that it solves.
HenriTEL 4y ago
On point. He's trying to make a product for his business instead of the user. Edit: In addtiton it's amazing how early he identified his business weaknesses (platforms dependency and lack of innovation) yet decided to solve them in such a strange if not wrong, at least very risky way. How all those investments in AR/VR would improve innovation problems in the core business? Apple is able to innovate in his core business so it's not a company size or age problem. Instagram, whatsapp, snap and tiktok are all proofs that there's room for innovation in facebook family of apps. Moreover if you already struggle with innovation and your growth comes from the network effect of your platforms is it really a good idea to bet on such ambitious projects?

PhilipA 4y ago

It looks like the AR glasses will depend on an external compute device, like the phone. If Facebook had invested more into their phone product, they would have a much easier time to compete against Apple/Google. Funny to think that they for a small amount of their VR investment (31b) they could have bought Xiaomi which would have given them a platform to expand on.

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erlkonig 4y ago

It seems the 2015 Zuck is limited by what's familiar to him and utterly failing to see the potential of new technology. To him, VR/AR is just a realm in which to deploy the same apps, a market to capture, annex Unity to protect themselves (at the probable expense of everyone else - glad that didn't work out). The idea of a large, shared environment as a platform for heterogeneous development seems to have never occurred to him. No vision.

type0 4y ago

Meta should be divided like AT&T 40 years ago

bullen 4y ago

As long as SteamVR does not work on a 1030 and Quest 3 is less powerful; VR will not meet it's energy requirement balance. The real metaverse is action MMO and that can run on a 5W Raspberry 4 at low resolutions.

edpichler 4y ago

Mark is smarter than I thought.