Former Meta executives say there is a "problem" in the company's decision-making and spending plans: a lot of money is not worth it

On February 7, John Carmack, a former executive at Facebook's parent company Meta and a video game pioneer, said he didn't approve of the company's decisions and spending plans before leaving, believing that much of the money spent by Meta was not worth it.

"I have encountered practical problems in many strategic directions of Meta," Carmack said in an interview. I'm sure you've seen the headlines about how much money they spent, but I think most of the money is not worth it. "

Carmack said he was "challenging" during his time at Meta. Carmack was the CTO of Oculus when Meta acquired Oculus in 2014 and became a CTO adviser to Oculus in 2019 to help the company drive its work in virtual reality. Carmack left Meta in 2022 and then shifted his focus to artificial intelligence through startup Keen Technologies.

Spokesmen for Mr. Carmack and Meta didn't respond to requests for comment.

Since Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Meta, renamed Facebook to Meta in 2021 and announced a full-scale shift to metacosmos, technology products developed by Oculus, including Oculus Rift and Oculus Quest, have become a key part of Meta's transformation plan. In order to reshape the company's brand, Meta abandoned the Oculus brand and renamed the headset to the Meta Quest line of products, which is the responsibility of the company's reality laboratory department. Zuckerberg also announced a strategic plan to build Meta around the metacosmos business, investing billions of dollars in metasonic-related areas through the reality Lab project. Last year, Meta announced a loss of $13.7 billion for its reality lab division.

This is not the first time Carmack has pointed the finger at Meta's decision. Last year, Mr Carmack, who was also an adviser to the chief technology officer, announced in a harshly worded departure memo that he would leave the company, in which he called on employees to "not care too much" about their departure.

"I've never been able to kill stupid things before they do harm," Carmack said in a memo. "I've never been able to set a direction for the team to really stick to it."

Carmack complained at the time that the company had "amazing people and resources, but it has been self-destructive and a waste of energy." "there is no way to whitewash it," he said. "I think the operational efficiency of our organization is only half of my satisfaction."

There are signs that Meta is trying to refocus.

Zuckerberg has reportedly been slashing company spending in recent months, including downsizing himself to increase efficiency. Last year, Meta laid off more than 11000 employees, the largest layoff in the company's history.

On the company's earnings call last week, Zuckerberg said there could be more layoffs in the future and called 2023 the "year of efficiency". After the news, Meta's share price soared by more than 20%.