Seeing giants fall like this, where they achieve the highest peaks imaginable, but then struggle to find the next thing that is suitably big enough to satisfy expectations makes me never want to reach mega success status if I ever start a startup.
But these kinds of once-in-a-generation moonshots, they're a product of wild ass luck, so if you find yourself with one, you grab it with both hands and ride it as far as it goes. Because it's not about you-- you need to be strong enough to hold on, keep the thing from exploding or crashing into the side of a mountain, but it's bigger than you and your level of control is partial at best. Honestly, it's usually the product of something big happening in the world that you've randomly managed to tap into.
To create an org that can do the latter (hello, Apple) seems incredible difficult, but it always seems to involve exceptionally creative leaders.
So the secret I think is to sell you mega status Facebook Borg and start afresh in a different area without the baggage of the previous app.
Sounds a little bit like Nokia, more than Apple. Paper mill, cable products, rubber boots, tires, TV, mobile phones... ;)
Do you want to build America's next top advertising company? Because that is what FB and Google did. Nothing else they have tried in ~20 years has come close to making any money.
- Robert Greene.
Facebook is the new MySpace, and Instagram is not attracting the newer generations. The metaverse is a wild moonshot to invent a completely new market and platform that Meta alone would control and of sufficient size to replace the inevitable decline of Facebook/Instagram ad revenue.
Personally, I don't believe people want the metaverse, and if it succeeds, it'll come at the cost of coercion via marketing overload.