When Meta released its quarterly earnings report on Wednesday evening, a colleague pointed out how Meta lost $4 billion on Reality Labs, the division responsible for its AR glasses, VR headsets, and VR software. Then I realized, that itself is notable ' for Meta, losses on this unit are quite literally average behavior. Over its last 21 quarterly earnings reports, dating back to 2021, Meta has lost a total of $83.5 billion on Reality Labs, which comes out to an average of about $4 billion in losses each quarter. That is bananas! True, it's not like Meta doesn't have the money. In the first quarter of this year, the social media giant posted a net income of $26.8 billion, up 61% over the year prior; revenue also increased 33% year-over-year to $56.3 billion. But despite its foundation in social media, Meta's current goal is to stay competitive with AI leaders like OpenAI and Anthropic. Meta projected that it will spend between $125 billion and $145 billion in 2026, exceeding...
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