Reports are coming out that there are planned layoffs at Meta that could hamper the company’s plans for its Alt-Reality products. Reuters is reporting layoffs in the Facebook Agile Silicon Team (FAST) which designs custom chips. As of now, the exact number of people being laid off out of the 600 that work in the unit is unclear and less clear is how many of those layoffs will take place in engineering.
This news follows hot on the heels of Meta’s recent launch of the Quest 3. The Quest 3 is, by all accounts, trying to be a cheaper and more user-friendly version of what Apple has been proposing with its Vision Pro meaning more gaming and more social activity tied into Meta’s universe of social apps and users. There’s little doubt that Meta is being aggressive on cost cuts which has helped the company’s stock bounce back from serious losses, and got Mark Zuckerberg higher up the wealthiest people in the world list, which is important, too.
Meta has gone all-in with Qualcomm and is using the Snapdragon XR2 Gen2 platform for the Quest 3, as well as the company’s Snapdragon AR1 Gen1 for its smart glasses. That may mean that the company is going to give up on its struggles to build its own chips and is comfortable to buy off-the-shelf or, at least be a friend with benefits with Qualcomm. At the end of the day, Meta will see more value in maintaining and growing its market share and boxing out Apple in the Alt-Reality market without trying to compete on chips. It was always going to be an uphill struggle for Meta to match Apple on silicon.
