![\"Mark](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/\/5c6c004c-8b1c-4fee-86be-9fc47443b0eb.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTo better understand Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s fantastical and eye-wateringly expensive vision for our AI-powered future, it is instructive to look into the recent past. <\/p>\n
Zuck had an idea \u2014 or maybe it was a fever dream. He called it the metaverse. Remember that? It was the Facebook founder\u2019s vision for \u201cthe next iteration of the internet\u201d, a universe of digital worlds \u2014entered using virtual reality goggles \u2014 where people would, supposedly, work and play. <\/p>\n
So enthused was Zuck by his techno-utopia idea that in October 2021 he changed Facebook\u2019s name to Meta. \u201cNow we have a new North Star: to bring the metaverse to life,\u201d he gushed. <\/p>\n
To say that this vision foundered doesn\u2019t quite capture it. Between early 2020 and September this year, Meta Meta poured nearly $90bn into Reality Labs, the division charged with giving life to his strategy. And yet, the metaverse feels as far away as ever. Horizon Worlds, the virtual network that Meta has spent so much money building, is a ghost town. <\/p>\n
The term \u201cmetaverse\u201d has faded from public conversations; virtual reality goggles remain a niche product. <\/p>\n
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Zuckerberg demonstrates an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset in 2016. The current Quest 3S model costs \u00a3250<\/p>\n
DAVID PAUL MORRIS\/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n
Financially, the metaverse lark will go down as one of the most epic wastes of money in corporate history. In nearly six years, Reality Labs accumulated a loss of $77 billion (\u00a358 billion), equivalent to over $1 billion a month. <\/p>\n
Which brings us neatly back to today. As we barrel toward 2026, Zuckerberg has dramatically deprioritised the metaverse \u2014 he is expected to lay off as much as 30 per cent of Reality Labs staff as soon as next month \u2014 to pursue a new obsession: AI, another shiny new technology on which he will spend tens of billions of shareholders\u2019 cash. <\/p>\n
\u2022 Facebook owner strikes AI deals with news publishers<\/a><\/p>\n This raises a basic question: is Zuck steering Meta headlong into another expensive boondoggle? Perhaps more fundamentally, is he any good at making products? At tapping into the zeitgeist? Does he know what people want? The joke, years ago, was that Facebook\u2019s head of research and development was actually Snapchat boss Evan Spiegel<\/a>, given how fervently Zuckerberg copied his rival\u2019s latest features.<\/p>\n There is no doubt that Zuckerberg is a ruthlessly efficient operator who has leveraged his initial invention into an empire. But as an innovator \u2014 a tastemaker \u2014 might he be, for want of a better word, clueless? It is a question investors are pondering as Zuck embarks on his next obsession, spending so much of their money to chase it. <\/p>\n Zuckerberg shows off his company\u2019s Orion augmented-reality glasses in 2024<\/p>\n PAUL MORRIS\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n Since June, the 41-year-old has spent an estimated $20 billion (\u00a315 billion) on a new unit, Meta Superintelligence. The goal: to build \u201cpersonal superintelligence for everybody\u201d. What does that actually mean? We\u2019ll come back to that. <\/p>\n The lion\u2019s share of the outlay came through a $14 billion (\u00a310 billion) investment in June in Scale AI, a 1,400-person start-up led by Alexandr Wang. Under the deal, Wang, 28, agreed to join Meta to lead its Superintelligence Labs. <\/p>\n Alexandr Wang<\/p>\n DAVID PAUL MORRIS\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n But Zuck was only just warming up his cash bazooka. The numbers are hard to believe. Matt Deitke, a 24-year-old coder, apparently accepted a four-year, $250 million (\u00a3187 million) offer from Zuck. Andrew Tulloch, co-founder of Thinking Machines Lab, the AI start-up led by OpenAI \u00e9migr\u00e9e Mira Murati, has reportedly rejoined Meta on a six-year, $1.5 billion (\u00a31.1 billion) pay deal; he worked there as an engineer for 11 years until September 2023. <\/p>\n OpenAI research head Mark Chen recounted how Zuckerberg tried to lure half his workers, offering them untold riches and even hand-delivering homemade soup. \u201cIt was shocking to me at the time,\u201d Chen recalled. <\/p>\n Zuckerberg boasted to investors: \u201cWe just did this huge effort to boot up Meta Superintelligence Labs and build what I am very proud of is, I think, the highest talent density \u2026 in the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 Meta wooing ChatGPT staff with $100m bonuses, Sam Altman claims<\/a><\/p>\n In a recent interview, he said reports on the huge pay packages were inaccurate but admitted it was a \u201cvery hot market.\u201d Zuck\u2019s underlying belief is that there are very few difference makers in AI \u2014 maybe a few hundred globally. Through that lens, paying vast amounts for the right people is utterly logical if, indeed, the prize is superintelligence. This is a squishy term, but is broadly understood as AI systems which are better than humans at all economically valuable work, and can self-improve and operate with increasing levels of autonomy. <\/p>\n Zuck\u2019s objective is to gift each of us our own personal superintelligence \u201cthat helps you achieve your goals, create what you want to see in the world, be a better friend and grow to become the person you aspire to be\u201d. <\/p>\n Wall Street is sceptical \u2014 not only of this rather fuzzy vision but the money Zuck is spending. Because he isn\u2019t just blowing cash on people. It\u2019s also on data centres<\/a>. <\/p>\n Meta has forecast that this year it will lavish up to $72 billion \u2014(\u00a354 billion) nearly three times its budget in 2023 \u2014 on capital expenditure. <\/p>\n This is principally going towards high-priced AI chips and gargantuan projects such as Hyperion, a data centre the size of Manhattan that would require up to five gigawatts of electricity \u2014 enough to power Greater London. <\/p>\n![\"Mark](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/\/30b21052-ed98-432b-9814-2f6d1f65ba90.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Alexandr](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/\/a6f867d0-caf3-4860-acae-cff313807d68.jpg\")
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