Mark Zuckerberg apologized for over-investing in Meta as he announced more than 11,000 staff would be laid off: ‘I got this wrong’

• Mark Zuckerberg apologized to Meta employees in a memo announcing over 11,000 layoffs Wednesday.
• “I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that,” he said in the memo.
• Meta’s founder said he had incorrectly assumed a pandemic revenue surge would be “permanent.”

Mark Zuckerberg apologized to employees as he announced sweeping layoffs at Meta.

“I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that,” he told employees on Wednesday.

Meta said it plans to lay off around 11,000 employees, or 13% of staff, a layoff that had been widely expected in recent days.

Zuckerberg told employees that Meta had over-invested in recent years after the pandemic led to increased revenues thanks to surging online activity.

Instead of the continued revenue growth Meta predicted, Zuckerberg said the company had been hit by a macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ad revenue losses. 

He said in the memo to employees: “Many people predicted this would be a permanent acceleration that would continue even after the pandemic ended. I did too, so I made the decision to significantly increase our investments. Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected.”

Meta, formerly Facebook, has been struggling since its rebrand and continued investment in the metaverse. Since the rebrand in October 2021, the company’s stock price has fallen around 70%, wiping billions from Zuckerberg’s net worth. ReadMore