Meta Employees On Board with Facebook Metaverse

Meta Employees On Board with Facebook Metaverse

Facebook’s decision to rebrand itself as a “metaverse” company focused on virtual work and social communities called Meta has earned criticism and even ridicule. Some in the technology community have derided the social media giant’s focus on the metaverse as a “scam” intended to distract the public from its public relations issues.

One absent critic is Meta’s employees.

More than four out of five Facebook employees (84%) believe the company’s rebrand as Meta is a good business decision, according to a survey of 11,673 verified professionals, including 1,120 employees at Facebook, from the professional social network Blind.

Other technologists and professionals are not so sure. Opinion on the rebrand was evenly split 50-50 among all survey respondents.

“[I] won’t underestimate Facebook especially when they go all in,” a verified Uber professional said on Blind in a discussion about the metaverse following Facebook’s Oct. 28 announcement. “In summary, don’t dismiss any tech and also don’t bet everything on a new tech[nology]. Both sides have bad examples. But be open and keep learning.”

What is the metaverse?

Technologists believe the metaverse could be the next version of the internet. The word’s origin gives us a clue of what this could mean: Meta, from the Greek-origin prefix for beyond or after, has been combined with the word universe.

In short, the metaverse could be a virtual and immersive universe where we could live our entire lives. You might join a meeting to get some work done or hang out with your friends in the metaverse.

“The metaverse is going to be the successor to the mobile internet,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said when he announced Facebook’s rebrand. “We hope that, by the end of the decade, we can help a billion people use the metaverse and support a digital economy worth hundreds of billions of dollars.”

The vision resonated with Zuckerberg’s employees. Two-thirds of Facebook professionals surveyed by Blind said they believed the metaverse would reach 1 billion people within the next decade, as Zuckerberg announced.

When will we see the Facebook metaverse?

To be clear: The metaverse is not a Facebook invention. The concept of a metaverse has been around before Meta, when it appeared in a science-fiction novel published in 1992. In the story, the metaverse is a three-dimensional virtual space where humans can interact as avatars or visual representations of a character or persona.

Yet despite technologists’ best efforts, the metaverse does not yet exist.

But Meta is so bullish on this vision that it plans to invest more than $10 billion in augmented reality, virtual reality and more just this year to develop metaverse apps, services and technologies.

And Meta employees are excited with the vision laid out by Zuckerberg. More than three out of four Facebook professionals (77%) believe their company will successfully build the metaverse, according to the survey from Blind.

However, metaverse-insiders remain skeptical about Meta’s high-profile plans. After all, Meta is not the only company working on a metaverse.

In Blind’s survey, employees at competing metaverse-building companies were among the most skeptical.

More than nine out of 10 professionals at Roblox (91%) do not believe Facebook will successfully build the metaverse. Roblox has built an immersive virtual world where users can interact and play original games created by other users.

Then, there are Google, Intel, Microsoft, NVIDIA and others who have been hard at work creating the chips, cloud, graphics and virtual reality technology required to bring the metaverse to life for the past decade or more.

When asked by Blind if they believe Facebook will successfully build the metaverse, a majority of professionals at these companies said “no:”

  • Google: 67%
  • NVIDIA: 63%
  • Intel Corporation: 61%
  • Microsoft: 60%

The bottom line

Facebook appears to be turning a corner after suffering a series of public relations crises. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announced plans to pivot Facebook into a metaverse company may have been the boost he needed to turn around employee morale. According to Blind, Facebook professionals are optimistic about the company’s plans to build a metaverse and the vision their leadership has laid out.

Methodology

Blind conducted an online survey of 11,673 verified professionals in the U.S., including 1,120 verified Facebook employees, on its platform from Oct. 28 to Nov. 1, 2021.

Survey respondents answered “yes” or “no” to the following statements:

  • I believe Facebook’s rebranding as Meta is a good business decision.
  • I believe Facebook will successfully build the metaverse.
  • I believe the metaverse will reach 1 billion people within the next decade, as Mark Zuckerberg announced.