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.
馬克•祖克柏(Mark Zuckerberg)是正確識別了科技領域下一個「風口」的巨眼英豪嗎？還是說，儘管祖克柏用高超的技術開發了Facebook，但它只是一個難以複製的一次性成功？如今改名爲Meta的該公司股價暴跌，這反映出人們對該公司創辦人在元宇宙（一種沉浸式網路）上的高昂賭注能否很快（甚至能否有朝一日）抵消其核心業務所承受的壓力感到懷疑。投資者們也很憤怒，因爲他們無法阻止祖克柏爲實現自己的目標燒掉逾百億美元。他們只能怪自己。他們明知該公司的雙層股權結構使擁有13%股權的祖克柏能夠控制半數以上的投票權，卻依然購買了該公司的股票。