Crypto experts are split on whether Mark Zuckerberg should lead Facebook into the metaverse, with Jenny Ta of Hodl Asset suggesting he should go if Meta is to thrive, and Yat Siu of Animoca claiming Zuckerberg is the only one who can move the firm ahead.
Ta, the chief operating officer of nonfungible token (NFT) platform developer Hodl Assets, believes that Zuckerberg should step down as CEO to avoid lawsuits and maintain the company’s reputation.
Yat Siu, co-founder and chairman of Animoca Brands, a blockchain game and virtual property developer, believes Zuckerberg is a “force of nature” who can bring Meta’s vision to life, but hopes he accepts a decentralized model.
The remarks come in the wake of Facebook’s recent rebranding to Meta, in which the company aims to create a platform for creators to construct virtual internet companies and launch its virtual reality hardware company, “Reality Labs,” on its approach to establishing the metaverse.
The Zuckerberg Metaverse
Because of the regulatory scrutiny targeted at the CEO over Facebook’s data mining, privacy, and content regulations, Ta told Cointelegraph that it would be best if he stepped aside to give Meta a clean slate. She then drew parallels between Bill Gates and Microsoft in the early 2000s.
“Bill Gates was a monopolist when he was still the CEO of Microsoft. As a result, the authorities went after him in a big way. After a series of litigation, he finally declared, ‘Forget this.’ I need to stand down in order to salvage the company.’ What’s more, guess what? “It was successful.”
Figures like Zuckerberg, Gates, and Jeff Bezos, according to Ta, never really want to “let go of the throne” but will do so to “guard their money” and fix their company’s image if necessary.
“Facebook, not the metaverse, is Mark Zuckerberg’s wealth. He has yet to be proven wrong by the metaverse. […] He must step aside and appoint a new CEO to operate Meta in order for him to have a clean slate.”
While Siu isn’t a fan of Facebook’s metaverse strategy, he believes that Zuckerberg should continue at the helm. The CEO, according to Siu, is a “force of nature” who is more concerned with getting his initiatives completed than with obtaining monetary remuneration at this point.
“This is the irony,” says the narrator. Because Meta is a founder-led business, I believe that Mark Zuckerberg is required to realize that objective. You can say whatever you want about all the things Mark may have done unwittingly. He’s a genius. He is one of the most intelligent people on the planet. He’ll lead the group with a mission in mind.”
However, Siu sees a problem with the organization’s ability to “go with him at the speed that he wants to go and spar with him appropriately.” If Meta and Zuckerberg truly want to create an “open” and profitable metaverse, Siu believes they must reevaluate their existing centralized economic model:
“I believe Facebook is in the midst of an innovator’s problem, which may work against Mark’s wishes.”
Adopting The Mainstream
In a broader sense, Ta compared the current condition of the metaverse to the early days of text messaging, when phone calls were the norm. Ta gave the example of her mother, who didn’t see the benefit of utilizing technology at first, but five to ten years later, it had become one of her primary modes of communication:
“Those who [first] used text messaging 20 years ago are [like] the 5% of the globe who actually know what the metaverse is.”
Siu believes that “mass adoption” will occur soon since the space debate has evolved from a niche topic to one that is reaching a wider audience.
“Every interaction has reached the stage where it’s no longer one person talking to one person who introduces another person. “It’s 1,000 people conversing with 1,000 people, resulting in a couple thousand people coming to the place,” he explained.
“We’ll have to speak about how we get from tens of millions to hundreds of millions presently.”
