Mark Zuckerberg
Year in review: The one-time boy genius isn’t looking like such a wunderkind these days. In late 2021, Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook wasn’t dystopian enough for him: the company was changing its name to Meta and running full-speed into the metaverse, an imaginary, goggle-dependent world where until recently people had no legs. A year later, while Zuck has kept screaming about virtual reality, Meta’s fortunes have plummeted.
In February, Zuck’s company made history for the wrong reasons: its stock price dropped by $230bn (£190bn) in a day, a national record. Nine short months later, Zuckerberg told employees he’d misjudged the fickle winds of business: “I got this wrong and I take responsibility for that.” In an admirable demonstration of such personal accountability, he fired 11,000 other people.
February also saw Meta’s first drop in users, and indeed, opening Facebook in recent years has felt like visiting the ruins of Pompeii. Elements of a once thriving society remain perfectly preserved, all but forgotten as time marches relentlessly on: TikTok, TikTok.
The bottom line: Yes, Zuck lost $30bn (£25bn) on that fateful February day, but he might just be able to squeak by on the $44.5bn (£36bn) he’s still got.
Terrible year score: 6/10.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/25/worst-tech-ceo-musk-bankman-fried-holmes-zuckerberg-bezos