Is Mark Zuckerberg a visionary who has correctly identified the Next Big Thing in tech? Or was Facebook — despite the skill with which Zuckerberg developed it — a one-off success that will be hard to replicate? The share price implosion at what is now called Meta reflects scepticism over whether pressures on its core businesses can be offset soon, if ever, by the founder’s costly bet on the metaverse, a form of immersive internet. Investors are angry, too, at their inability to constrain Zuckerberg from burning through billions of dollars in pursuit of his goal. They have only themselves to blame. They knowingly bought into a dual-class share structure that allows the Meta boss, with 13 per cent of the equity, to control more than half the votes.
马克•扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)是正确识别了科技领域下一个“风口”的巨眼英豪吗？还是说，尽管扎克伯格用高超的技术开发了Facebook，但它只是一个难以复制的一次性成功？如今改名为Meta的该公司股价暴跌，这反映出人们对该公司创始人在元宇宙（一种沉浸式互联网）上的高昂赌注能否很快（甚至能否有朝一日）抵消其核心业务所承受的压力感到怀疑。投资者们也很愤怒，因为他们无法阻止扎克伯格为实现自己的目标烧掉逾百亿美元。他们只能怪自己。他们明知该公司的双层股权结构使拥有13%股权的扎克伯格能够控制半数以上的投票权，却依然购买了该公司的股票。