Mark Zuckerberg may be in the metaverse, but other tech leaders are less enthusiastic—a many less enthusiastic.
Speaking to Wall Street JournalAt Wednesday’s Tech Live conference, several executives weighed in on what the metaverse is like, with very few good things going on today. While there is no direct reference to Meta’s multibillion-dollar investment in the virtual world, that company’s vision of the metaverse seems to be on their minds.
“The last thing I want to do when I get home from work at the end of a long day is live inside a computer,” Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said, to laughter from the audience.
Phil Spencer, who runs Microsoft’s Xbox division, has been less vocal about the metaverse concept, saying, “I’m going to get in trouble for saying this, but this is a poorly made video game…Development of a meeting room-like metaverse? I found it was not a place where I wanted to spend most of my time.”
And Apple SVP of global marketing Greg Joswiak said that metaverse is “a word I would never use,” something Craig Federighi, Apple SVP of software, agreed with.
SVPs are hardly the first at Apple to downplay the concept of the metaverse. Earlier this month, Apple CEO Tim Cook told the Dutch publication Clearly (via Google Translate): “I always think it’s important for people to understand what something is. And I’m really not sure the average person could tell you what the metaverse is.
Even internal Meta documents have been critical of the company’s efforts so far, with one saying, “An empty world is a sad world.”
Meta has, to date, spent more than $15 billion on its metaverse project, but uptake has been slow. The company lowered its goal of 500,000 active users by the end of the year to 280,000.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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