Bob Iger’s ax is swinging, and an entire unit has been cut. When Bob Chapek was the CEO, he mentioned focusing on “next-generation storytelling” inside the Metaverse. Now his 50-person team has been chopped, according to Deadline. These cuts are part of the first round of layoffs Bob Iger announced yesterday.
The person leading the unit, Mike White, will remain at the company, but his new position hasn’t been announced. Before leading the Metaverse division, White worked as a consumer products executive.
Meta has been facing a lot of issues lately. At one point, even Bob Iger was joining the board of a metaverse-based company called Genies. So it wasn’t just Bob Chapek that thought the Metaverse was the “next big thing.”
Facebook has even shifted away from the Metaverse and wants to focus on AI. Remember, Mark Zuckerberg, rebranded the parent company of Facebook to Meta just in the last year or two. Now they are laying off thousands of employees themselves.
The Metaverse is not resonating with people like companies initially thought. It doesn’t help that the imagery is wonky, and video games are far superior in virtual reality than the Metaverse. Many seem to mock it more than use it.
The sad part is that many employees are caught up in the Meta backlash at Facebook and now Disney.
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Source: Deadline
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