4 ms·

Meta paid VR developers exorbitant salaries. It's now in financial trouble

20 points by GalenErso 4y ago

joezydeco 4y ago
Nobody ever questioned why the Quest 2 retailed for $300 but the Pro is $1500. Is the hardware that much more valuable? What if Facebook subsidized the 20 million Quest 2 units? At a wild guess of $800/unit, that's 1.6 billion.
- wkat4242 4y ago
  It's not $1500 anymore though. They dropped the price a lot. But I think the price difference is mostly market positioning. Business product ..
Traubenfuchs 4y ago
What did all of those overpaid clowns achieve? What did they work on? Is horizon worlds with wii/ps2 graphics and without legs really the best they could do?
- cyanydeez 4y ago
  VR legs
- soulofmischief 4y ago
  You say overpaid, I say in-demand. Instead of insulting these developers for being at the right place in the right time, you should decide if you also want this; If so, go for it. If not, it's not healthy to view what are probably some of the most capable VR engineers in the space as clowns. You should be happy for them.
- techaqua 4y ago
  It is supposed to work on standalone device like quest 2. Of course it has wii graphics. it's like if you make a phone to render 2 full hd at 120hz.
- milesvp 4y ago
  I think you may be uncharitable in the constraints they were working with. A wireless unit has to handle all the rendering while running off a battery. worse is that VR is a very hard place to be. Lag can be enough to cause nausea, but jitter will kill you. Jitter will make things look jerky while making you empty your stomach. Add to that that your peripheral has much higher sensitivity to fps 120hz might not realistically be high enough refresh rate not to cause a significant discomfort for most of the population. And that’s just for rendering controlled worlds. Now add the desire for massive gatherings and suddenly the quality of avatars necessarily has to go down, if only due to potential network bandwidth constraints. I agree the way it looks, I’m not going to want to spend time with it. I agree it’s probably a product that could never have succeeded. But given the constaints I have a very hard time holding the engineers with contempt for their accomplishments.
  - wkat4242 4y ago
    I think it's succeeding pretty well already. I use VR daily and love it.. Horizons, now that's another thing. Meta is making it too child friendly so everything is all hello kitty.. that's doomed to fail but VR in general and the quest headset is great IMO.
sublinear 4y ago
This sounds like more anti-dev propaganda. I agree the salaries were ridiculous but I believe Meta's goal was to overcome what was probably incompetent management and stifled/censored creative teams with highly motivated developers. Clearly that doesn't work. I'm imagining some equally ridiculous meetings where the devs were laughing at the pathetic ideas cooked up by their bosses just as much as they laughed all the way to the bank.
- 908B64B197 4y ago
  > I agree the salaries were ridiculous Were they? They were going after the best engineers in the VR space. What they did with the Quest was ahead of everyone else.
- deepzn 4y ago
  It is part of the "overpaid software engineers, and foolish tech companies" narrative. A person I know got hired as a senior dev in VR there 2 years ago, and he's one of the most talented devs I know.
  - sublinear 4y ago
    Absolutely no doubt Meta hired some awesome engineers. What a waste. It's like having a Lamborghini in the driveway with no gas and no plans to ever take it to the track.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- HyperSane 4y ago
  rich people who live off of investments seem to really hate it when compensation for labor gets high enough to allow labor to live the same lifestyle that they do.
int3 4y ago
This is just a standard FAANG package lol. The gaming industry just pays devs poorly
KptMarchewa 4y ago
So much troubles they _only_ did 40B stock buyback, right?
- elcritch 4y ago
  Whoa is them. I bet Google got to do a $50b stock buy back, so unfair.
  - ryanwaggoner 4y ago
    *woe
v0idzer0 4y ago
Washington Post is also in financial trouble and their pay is terrible so
ulfw 4y ago
The problem of Zuckerberg's company isn't that they paid too much in engineering salaries. The problem is they paid it for the wrong things, invested into the wrong projects and let their hero products wither.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mehh 4y ago
FAANG pay more than games companies, this isn’t news!

20 points by GalenErso 4y ago

Nobody ever questioned why the Quest 2 retailed for $300 but the Pro is $1500. Is the hardware that much more valuable? What if Facebook subsidized the 20 million Quest 2 units? At a wild guess of $800/unit, that's 1.6 billion.

wkat4242 4y ago
It's not $1500 anymore though. They dropped the price a lot. But I think the price difference is mostly market positioning. Business product ..

Traubenfuchs 4y ago

What did all of those overpaid clowns achieve? What did they work on? Is horizon worlds with wii/ps2 graphics and without legs really the best they could do?

cyanydeez 4y ago
VR legs
soulofmischief 4y ago
You say overpaid, I say in-demand. Instead of insulting these developers for being at the right place in the right time, you should decide if you also want this; If so, go for it. If not, it's not healthy to view what are probably some of the most capable VR engineers in the space as clowns. You should be happy for them.
techaqua 4y ago
It is supposed to work on standalone device like quest 2. Of course it has wii graphics. it's like if you make a phone to render 2 full hd at 120hz.
milesvp 4y ago
I think you may be uncharitable in the constraints they were working with. A wireless unit has to handle all the rendering while running off a battery. worse is that VR is a very hard place to be. Lag can be enough to cause nausea, but jitter will kill you. Jitter will make things look jerky while making you empty your stomach. Add to that that your peripheral has much higher sensitivity to fps 120hz might not realistically be high enough refresh rate not to cause a significant discomfort for most of the population. And that’s just for rendering controlled worlds. Now add the desire for massive gatherings and suddenly the quality of avatars necessarily has to go down, if only due to potential network bandwidth constraints. I agree the way it looks, I’m not going to want to spend time with it. I agree it’s probably a product that could never have succeeded. But given the constaints I have a very hard time holding the engineers with contempt for their accomplishments.
- wkat4242 4y ago
  I think it's succeeding pretty well already. I use VR daily and love it.. Horizons, now that's another thing. Meta is making it too child friendly so everything is all hello kitty.. that's doomed to fail but VR in general and the quest headset is great IMO.

sublinear 4y ago

This sounds like more anti-dev propaganda. I agree the salaries were ridiculous but I believe Meta's goal was to overcome what was probably incompetent management and stifled/censored creative teams with highly motivated developers. Clearly that doesn't work. I'm imagining some equally ridiculous meetings where the devs were laughing at the pathetic ideas cooked up by their bosses just as much as they laughed all the way to the bank.

908B64B197 4y ago
> I agree the salaries were ridiculous Were they? They were going after the best engineers in the VR space. What they did with the Quest was ahead of everyone else.
deepzn 4y ago
It is part of the "overpaid software engineers, and foolish tech companies" narrative. A person I know got hired as a senior dev in VR there 2 years ago, and he's one of the most talented devs I know.
- sublinear 4y ago
  Absolutely no doubt Meta hired some awesome engineers. What a waste. It's like having a Lamborghini in the driveway with no gas and no plans to ever take it to the track.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
HyperSane 4y ago
rich people who live off of investments seem to really hate it when compensation for labor gets high enough to allow labor to live the same lifestyle that they do.

int3 4y ago

This is just a standard FAANG package lol. The gaming industry just pays devs poorly

KptMarchewa 4y ago

So much troubles they _only_ did 40B stock buyback, right?

elcritch 4y ago
Whoa is them. I bet Google got to do a $50b stock buy back, so unfair.
- ryanwaggoner 4y ago
  *woe

v0idzer0 4y ago

Washington Post is also in financial trouble and their pay is terrible so

ulfw 4y ago

The problem of Zuckerberg's company isn't that they paid too much in engineering salaries. The problem is they paid it for the wrong things, invested into the wrong projects and let their hero products wither.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

mehh 4y ago

FAANG pay more than games companies, this isn’t news!