How do you explain the business model of the Metaverse is going to be?

Vishal Shah talking to CNBC:  Right now, how we are thinking about it is in the next decade, we hope a billion people will be able to use the metaverse and transact with hundreds of billions worth of dollars’ worth of commerce – digital commerce.

And, there is an opportunity certainly there from a commerce perspective, but also for advertising as creators build new worlds, businesses as creators build the opportunity to make those known to others, which would be powerful in itself, but it is early.  We are starting on this really where we are having a conversation broadly.  And, it is important to know that Facebook, now Meta would not be building the Metaverse alone. We are going to be partnering with other companies, talking about it more broadly with the ecosystem, because it is too big for anyone big company.

CNBC:  You mentioned this notion that this meta transformation, the metaverse transformation of Facebook is very much in the initial stages.   This could be a 5, 10, 15-year transition.

I wonder if you could talk a little bit about, what you think the employee base, both yourself and your peers and colleagues at Facebook/meta feel about the direction of this company in the coming months and years, given some other things that have been happening in Washington DC and elsewhere with regulators and politicians.  Is there a sense right now that meta is going to change over the next 5 to 10 years in to a company that is far and distant away from a company what we know is Facebook today?

Vishal Shah: Well, I think it is important to note that we are very much taking our heritage with us in to this future.  The simple things like the logo has the Facebook blue in it.  The font is the same as Facebook.  We aren’t running from our past. We are heading towards our future.

And, the Facebook products, Instagram, Whatsapp messenger remain important parts or our overall offering to consumers. We are just more than a social media company. We have been for some time, given our investments in hardware and in things like metaverse.  We are just making it that much more explicit now.

So, we are talking the lessons we have learnt certainly in to the future, building this more and talking about it now, but it is important to know we are not running from it.  We are excited about this future that we are building.