Also: ByteDance staff cashes out, BoA junk fee fine, fake nickel
Good morning from Geneva.
With all the ongoing generative A.I. fanfare, we risk forgetting that before there was ChatGPT, there was the metaverse, the three-dimensional iteration of the internet that users could enter via virtual reality headsets.
Even a year ago, the hype was still so big that someone forked over $450,000 to be rapper Snoop Dogg’s neighbor in the “Snoopverse” and Citi estimated the metaverse economy would be worth $13 trillion by 2030, Fortune editor-in-chief Alyson Shontell reminded participants at Fortune‘s Brainstorm Tech conference this week.
But in the blink of an eye, the boom turned to bust. Meta Inc., which—as its name suggests—went all-in on the metaverse, saw its stock tumble by almost three-quarters in the second half of 2022, partly due to the billions it spent on its metaverse without having significant revenues to back up its big bet. Disney and Microsoft, meanwhile, closed their metaverse departments altogether.
So what does the future hold for the industry?
“The metaverse hype is dead,” Meta’s metaverse chief Vishal Shah acknowledged in his conversation with Shontell at Brainstorm Tech in Park City, Utah, yesterday. His division’s main product, Horizon Worlds, is now focused on user retention, rather than growth, and on building a valuable core offering, rather than a sprawling expansion. The most popular use cases, he said, are in “social,” gaming, and fitness—not business.
Of course, the metaverse, like other technologies that came before it, may just be returning to earth rather than facing outright extinction. Apple announced its premium augmented reality headset “Vision Pro” just last month. Meta too is still investing in its more “democratic” version of the metaverse, Shah said.
But for now at least, much of the tech world seems to have moved on. The debate on regulating A.I. and the newly launched battle between Twitter and Meta’s Threads are the new talk of the town. Threads just yesterday surpassed the 100 million user count, beating a record set by OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
For the rest of us, I would argue the lesson is to focus on the undercurrent, rather than the comings and goings of waves at the surface. The real question for executives is how to keep their business models relevant in the digital age, not whether they should buy a virtual house next to Snoop Dogg’s. For lawmakers, it is how to maintain trust and shared prosperity when this era’s technologies naturally cause the opposite.
More news below.
Peter Vanham
peter.vanham@fortune.com
@petervanham
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ByteDance cashes out
TikTok owner ByteDance will let some of its U.S.-based staff vest their stock options early rather than wait for the social media company to go public. ByteDance is the world’s most valuable startup at $220 billion but has moved slowly on its listing plans given Chinese regulatory scrutiny and a weak IPO market. TikTok is also under pressure from U.S. politicians worried about censorship and data privacy. Reuters
Junk fees
Bank of America will pay a $150 million fine for charging “junk fees” to its customers and opening fake accounts. The nation’s second-largest bank, at times, charged customers multiple overdraft fees on a single transaction. Bank of America will also compensate customers who paid improper fees or had cards opened for them without their knowledge. The New York Times
Fake nickel
A Hong Kong-based sandwich store owner and a Dubai-based hotel chef are wrapped up in a $535 billion fake nickel scandal. The two individuals are reportedly the owners of two of seven companies accused of defrauding commodity trader Trafigura by selling it the nonexistent metal earlier this year. The scandal has raised questions about Trafigura’s due diligence as the company ignored missing details on who it was buying from. Financial Times
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The future of workforce well-being The concept of workforce well-being has grown beyond an organization’s current employees and now prioritizes long-term human sustainability, according to a Deloitte survey. And while 89% of executives said their company is advancing human sustainability in some capacity, just 41% of employees agree. So how might leaders take action to improve the well-being of their workforce? Explore insights here.
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How will A.I. affect you? |
FORTUNE Brainstorm A.I. convening on December 11 -12 Join Fortune for the third annual Brainstorm A.I. conference to delve into the hype and hysteria. Explore its potential to mimic human behavior and the far-reaching implications as it advances. Click here to learn more. |
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