While Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been funneling billions into developing his digital metaverse, Apple CEO Tim Cook maintains that the average person still can’t even define what the metaverse is.
The Verge reports that Apple CEO Tim Cook is not convinced by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s efforts to develop a digital “metaverse” where users will work, play, and socialize in an online 3D realm.
Tim “Apple” Cook Flashes V for Victory (Amy Sussman/Getty)
Mark Zuckerberg introduces Meta (Facebook)
“I always think it’s important that people understand what something is,” Cook told Dutch publication Bright. “And I’m really not sure the average person can tell you what the metaverse is.”
Although Apple has discussed the move into Augmented Reality hardware and possibly VR, Cook’s comments seem to imply that this will not be a major focus of the company for some time.
Mark Zuckerberg, however, believes the metaverse to be the future of online interaction. Zuckerberg told his employees that Facebook (now Meta) is in a “very deep, philosophical competition” with Apple to build the metaverse. Cook appears to be unaware of this competition.
Zuckerberg told the employees: “This is a competition of philosophies and ideas, where they believe that by doing everything themselves and tightly integrating that they build a better consumer experience.”
Cook isn’t the only tech CEO unconvinced by Zuckerberg’s plans. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel recently said that the company avoids using the term metaverse as it is “pretty ambiguous and hypothetical,” and that if you were to ask a room of people to define what the metaverse is, all their definitions would be ”totally different.”
Similarly, Amazon’s head of devices David Limp recently said that if he asked a “few hundred people what they thought the metaverse was, we’d get 205 different answers” and that the term lacks a “common definition.”
Breitbart News has previously reported that Zuckerberg’s metaverse obsession is causing problems for Facebook employees.
Business Insider reports that Mark Zuckerberg has become increasingly obsessed with the idea of a digital metaverse, to the point where many of his employees are becoming frustrated and annoyed with the concept. According to a former director-level employee who recently left the company, it’s “the only thing Mark wants to talk about.”
The same former employee stated that the company is “messaging the hell out of” the metaverse and is “spinning up teams that are metaverse specific.” One team will reportedly reach across all others within the company and inform them that there is a “metaverse playbook.”
Some employees are reportedly confused by the shift towards metaverse technology. One current employee told Business Insider: “It’s basically fomenting disorganization and anxiety. People don’t really seem to know what to deliver or what to work on because there is still no coherent strategy.”
Read more at the Verge here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan
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