Meta co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg may be pouring billions into the metaverse, but not everyone’s a fan.
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Palmer Luckey, the founder of VR headset startup Oculus, which was acquired by Facebook in 2014, shared his candid thoughts on Zuckerberg’s metaverse at the Wall Street Journal‘s Tech Live conference on Monday. And he’s not impressed with the results so far.
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Luckey is also a former Facebook employee who was ousted from the company in 2017. The Oculus founder told CNBC his firing was politically motivated following his $10,000 donation to a pro-Trump group, but the tech giant has denied that allegation.
“It’s not good, it’s not fun,” Luckey said of Zuckerberg’s metaverse. “Most people on the team would agree it’s not a good product.”
Meta invested $10 billion in the metaverse in 2021 alone, per Fortune, and is expected to put in another $10 billion this year.
Despite the staggering financial investment, Zuckerberg‘s project has had a lackluster performance so far: WSJ reported earlier this month that Meta has already slashed user growth goals for its primary metaverse platform, Horizon Worlds, due to slumping initial results.
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Still, Luckey hasn’t written Zuckerberg’s metaverse off completely.
“It is terrible today, but it could be amazing in the future,” the Oculus founder said. “Zuckerberg will put the money in to do it. They’re in the best position of anyone to win in the long run.”
Meta Platforms Inc is down nearly 60% year over year.