With Meta facing an “unprecedented level of competition” from TikTok, and their stock price dropping more than a quarter, the Facebook company are working hard to keep staff on board, and founder Mark Zuckerburg has appeared at a company-wide virtual meeting with red, teary eyes, joking that he wasn’t about to cry, but that it was the result of scratched cornea.
According to a source at the meeting, the 37-year-old said the historic stock plunge was due to Meta’s weak revenue forecast in the current quarter, and that it is important for the company to focus on Facebook’s short-video product.
With Facebook losing a record US$251 billion value in one day, Zuckerburg reportedly said they have to rise to their competition, which is rival viral-video platform TikTok. Meta’s Instagram app Reels is basically a copy of TikTok, and that is where the company’s priority now sits.
When the stock price fell, some employees were said to be talking about buying shares, believing Zuckerburg’s long-term vision of a metaverse was the way of the future. Others were concerned about their net worth.
Zuckerburg’s own wealth dropped by US$31 billion.
Now Meta are looking at ways to keep valuable staff, with one idea being extending existing three-day holiday weekends.
Worried about employees suffering burnout, Zuckerburg encouraged exhausted employees to use built up holiday leave.
Like many in tech, Facebook workers are compensated via shares. Options are due February 15, and annual bonuses come through in March. These will obviously be a prime factor in an employee’s decision to stay of jump ship.