Metaverse: Zuckerberg has a dream, but it's an expensive one

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Moving onto the metaverse

Sandberg has reportedly felt "burned out" and hasn't been closely involved with the company's high-profile pursuit of building out a metaverse — a series of interconnected spaces in virtual reality — which Zuckerberg sees as the future of the company.

That future vision is ambitious, and Zuckerberg is putting Meta's money where its mouth is. The company's latest financial quarter reveals revenue of just $695m for the hardware-and-metaverse-focused Reality Labs division, with operating costs of almost $3.7bn. That means that Zuckerberg's metaverse vision is currently burning around $3bn a quarter or $1bn a month, a large bill for a product suite that Zuckerberg believes could take a decade to build.

Leaning In

Sandberg's leadership experience at Meta, where 31% of employees indirectly reported to her last year, led her to write the 2013 book Lean In which encouraged women to assert themselves more in the workplace and at home. Currently just 25% of leadership roles at large tech companies are held by women according to Deloitte.

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