Meta’s Metaverse is Off to a Rocky Start

The company previously known as Facebook has spent billions of dollars constructing the so-called metaverse, where people inhabit immersive digital environments.

But its first year has been bumpy: Meta’s flagship virtual-reality social network, Horizon Worlds, remains buggy and unpopular. Many employees have said they don’t understand the company’s metaverse strategy. And one executive said that the amount of money spent on unproven projects made him “sick to my stomach.”

Context: The stakes are high for the company, which is racing to transform itself to make up for declines in other parts of its business. Meta’s stock price has tumbled nearly 60 percent in the past year. The company also announced that it would freeze most hiring and warned employees that layoffs may be coming.

Inside the metaverse: My colleague Kashmir Hill spent more than 24 hours inside the immersive, three-dimensional universe of Horizon Worlds. It was surprisingly fun.

A new technology podcast: In the inaugural episode of “Hard Fork,” tech journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton debate whether Elon Musk’s newest offer to buy Twitter is for real this time.