Social media giant Meta has sent an internal memo to its employees, outlining the difficulties that are expected for the rest of the year and thereon and pointing out which areas they’ll need to prioritise so that the company can remain profitable.
The memo, which was obtained by Reuters, was sent by Meta’s chief product officer Chris Cox and outlines all the challenges they’ll be facing along the way.
Cox points out six areas that Meta will need to focus on in the near future, providing an in-depth explanation about each of them individually. Those are the metaverse, privacy, artificial intelligence, monetisation, Reels and messaging.
“I have to underscore that we are in serious times here and the headwinds are fierce,” Cox says in the memo. “We need to execute flawlessly in an environment of slower growth, where teams should not expect vast influxes of new engineers and budgets.” Cox adds that teams will need to prioritise more “ruthlessly”, as they will not be provided with any additional budgets or staff members.
It’s worth pointing out that this situation of increased pressure that Meta finds itself in is a result of its previous quarterly financial report in which it was revealed that the company’s financial growth had slowed significantly. The reasons behind that were said to be the war in Ukraine, the changes in policy made by Apple and Google and the unexpected rise of TikTok. Meta has been bringing a series of updates to both Facebook and Instagram in order to make its platform more appealing and win back some of those users it lost during TikTok’s rise to prominence.
However, these financial difficulties have forced Meta to put a halt on any further hires, at least for the rest of 2022, leaving those who remain at the company with increased responsibilities.
It has also made them pause some of their upcoming Reality Labs projects .