Zuckerberg Tells Staff To Focus on Video Products as Meta's Stock Plunges

An anonymous reader shares a report: Mark Zuckerberg quipped that if he started to cry, it wasn't because of the day's news. His red, teary eyes were the result of a scratched cornea, the Facebook founder said Thursday, attempting to lighten the mood as Meta Platforms' stock price lost more than a quarter of its value. At a company-wide virtual meeting, Zuckerberg explained that the historic stock drop was a result of Meta's weak forecast for revenue in the current quarter, according to a person who attended and was not authorized to speak about it. It is important to focus on growing Facebook's short-video product, he said. Zuckerberg echoed his remarks of a day earlier to investors, telling employees that the social networking giant faced an 'unprecedented level of competition,' with the rise of TikTok, the rival viral-video platform. Meta's Instagram app has a copycat of TikTok called Reels, which the company is now prioritizing.

Employees were glued to the stock price. Facebook lost a record $251 billion of value in a single day. Some were discussing buying shares during the dip, believing in Zuckerberg's long-term vision for the metaverse, an immersive version of the internet. Others fretted about what a continued decline might mean for their net worth, according to people familiar with the matter. Zuckerberg's own wealth dropped by $31 billion. Meta is already talking about ways to retain staff amid the stock rout. The social media giant is thinking of extending existing three-day holiday weekends, Zuckerberg said, responding to a question on burnout. He also encouraged exhausted employees to use their vacation days. He added that based on his life experience, transitioning to a four-day work week all the time would not be productive.

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