[bitL]

Mark is facing innovator dilemma. Should he pivot the company to a new field while he still has funds or just wait until the zombification finishes his baby off? Maybe the way he chose is not optimal, maybe Reality Labs should be completely ambidextrous without any link to FB outside funding?

[skippyboxedhero]

Right, but the problem would still be that Zuckerberg controls both so would still overfund VR. You could spin off, but it is losing too much. Zuckerberg could buy out, but then you have a CEO splitting his time with his side piece...and if that takes off, then you look like a complete asshole for stiffing public shareholders.

To be clear though: he has created this situation. If he lost a reasonable amount of money, none of these questions would be asked. Anything north of $10bn is just madness, $5bn is bad, $2-3 is probably about right. It is all sustainable within the current situation, he just has no-one telling him how bad this all looks (what it looks like now is the opposite of the final scenario: man who is worth hundreds of billions rinses public shareholders for his fever dream VR fantasy).

Innovator's dilemma is all operational, so it should be separate from FB. Capital allocation choices are distinct from all this (the innovator's dilemma exists because CEOs are usually terrible investors/capital allocators, there are maybe 20 CEOs who have ever run a public company who can allocate capital well, Zuck actually had a decent rep before this because of his acquisitions but he is torching it with VR, which is clearly very far from commercial revenue).

[EFreethought]

WRT Zuckerberg looking like an asshole: I think that ship sailed a long time ago.