[tootie]

Compare to Apple who has been crazy profitable but who opted to pile up a cash hoard. Meta and Google and some others saw every spare billion as an opportunity to hire another moonshot team to build AI/VR robot cars. All that stuff was funded by their main businesses. Now they are basically giving up. Stick to their core businesses and just keep the cash.

[vineyardmike]

To be fair, apple is famous for having poured money into AR and robot cars lately. “Project Titan” was a cash burning machine, and we’ve been expecting their rumored AR goggles any day now.

Apple may have had more discipline with hiring, but they definitely fund R&D ventures - especially the “moonshots” you mention. They seem to have avoided any crypto teams, and any space-tech teams, but they also seemed under invested in AI.

[jsnell]

Meta wasn't just pouring money into moonshots. They returned $45 billion to shareholders in 2021 and $28 billion in 2022, via stock buybacks.