[ryandvm]

Fascinating. Looking forward to when Zuck hits his mid 40s and ends up self-immolating Meta in the most glorious mid-life crisis the world has ever seen.

[Source: I'm in my 40s and could easily imagine cratering a trillion dollar company I created in a quixotic quest to make the world a better place.]

[samwillis]

You could be on to something there, "he" has just "rebranded" and asked us to refer to himself under a "cool" new name and new look. Plus he is trying to start the cult of the Metaverse where we will all transcend to a new plane of existence... this does sound a lot like a mid life crisis to me.

[nostrademons]

He might just voluntarily step away for his mid-life crisis, the way Page, Brin, Bezos, Ellison, and Gates have.

I figured a similar dynamic existed when Google did their Class-A/Class-C split. Brin, Page, and Schmidt together hold voting control of the company, so I could envision a future where investors tried to buy up all the Class-A shares and enlist the cooperation of one of the founders to oust the remaining founder. For a long time I held onto my Class-A shares and sold the Class-C ones in case the voting rights premium spiked. But that didn't happen: they've all stepped away from operational roles at the company and in Schmidt's case even resigned from the board. Now the Class-A and Class-C shares largely trade in parallel, and in some cases Class-A even trades below C (which is slightly insane since they are strictly better, but market fluctuations).

[babyshake]

Frankly, I think the whole Meta rebranding seems like a bit of a manic impulsive decision. Of course I know there is more to it than that but there's a not insignificant chance that it was the turning point in the company's decline, if the whole Oculus/metaverse thing doesn't in fact play out in the next couple years.

[riidom]

Holy cow, now I'm waiting for that too!