Meta Connect & Mark's Interview
The reasons why Meta is thriving & will continue to do so.
Meta Connect is the company’s annual conference where they unveil new products & services or important upgrades for the first time. Lot was presented this year and I’m sure many are reviewing their takes on Reality Labs' losses & capex, the main reasons for Q1 & Q2’s stock decline - which provided pretty good entry points.
I will add some commecnts Mark made in a podcast with Cleo Abram - a pretty interesting one, where he also commented about Meta’s innovations & new products.
Starting with Meta Connect, we had a very comfortable Mark Zuckerberg without any script, only his passion for his innovations - while everything presentation was live. He doesn't get enough credit for the work he does, excluding personal bias.
Meta AI & Llama.
Starting with what was only the second most important topic for me, strangely. Mark insisted once again on the importance of open source when it comes to growing AI usage, and I think he's entirely right.
Meta is the only company building a LLM that I am genuinely excited about, as most of what is being developed will certainly have real-world use cases in the future, a future which will likely include many AIs from various companies for different & specifics tasks.
“They [Google & OpenAI] build AIs like if users were going to use theirs for everything […] We’re gonna have a lot of AI systems just like we have a lots of apps.”
This is part of the reason why Meta is open-sourcing Llama; it gives anyone the opportunity to develop applications based on Meta's technology - attracting the best developers and more users, growing Meta's network effect.
This isn't true for OpenAI. Imagine when this, below, is live. What do we think will happen? Will users switch to ChatGPT's app, or will they use the built-in vocal LLM on their favorite social media apps?
This is a bigger threat to Google than ChatGPT. We are talking about 3 billion monthly active users across these apps and besides these classic LLMs functionnality, they also will have access to other services such as AI trained avatars & more in the future, due to this open sourcing.
Monetization is stilla big question Mark (eheh) but that’s how Meta does things. They develop, bring in users and then monetize so I’m sure they’ll find something in time. We could even argue than keeping users on the app is already a form of monetization.
We had a demonstration of this AI "personal assistants" or avatar I talked about earlier, which is pretty impressive & very interesting for every domain. Imagine an AI trained on all my write ups, you could simple ask questions to have your answers instead of reading a 48min Bitcoin IC… The dream.
Another presentation about a more known subject: live subtitling/dubbing of any content into different languages.
Pretty cool, impressive & very interesting coupled with the Meta glasses which we will talk about just now.
Orion.
But we will start by talking about the new innovation which is, I will use the words: ground-breaking. What Mark called a “10 years in the making product.” Or “The real life Tony Stark’s glasses”.
I’ve seen a few comments calling this presentation the “Meta’s IPhone moments”. Hard to say, Mark sure doens’t have the presentation skill Jobs’ had, but we might be there in term of product innovation.
“I think it’s gonna be the next major computing platform.”
To be clear, this isn’t the AI Meta RayBan Glasses, this is an entirely different product which is not commercialized yet. Orion is a mix of both the glasses & the Quest headset.
“The first full holographic augmented reality glasses.”
It is of course not as powerful as the Quest but users will be able to do everything the AI RayBan glasses do with some functionalities of the headset like holographic digital display, eye & finger tracking, etc…
It’s hard to describe. The demo might give you a better idea.
As you can see in the screenshot above, they do not come alone and have a few connected tools, notably a bracelet which will be used to detect your hands movement and interact with you new computer, located on your nose.
This is technology. This is innovation. This is exciting.
and again, this is a prototype, not commercialized yet. Still lots of work to make this kind of product mainstream but it is amazing to see that some companies are really working on these things, real & useful innovation - a good use of cash.
“Our mission is not to build something that is advanced and only a few people can use, we want to take it to the last miles and do all the inovation to get it to everyone.”
Lots of shots were fired at Apple during this presentation. I’m loving it.
Meta now proposes the RayBan glasses, a very cool product which will surely take off in the next years as people understand its value. The Quest headset which we will talk about just now. And now, Orion, the next step of innovation.
Or as Mark said.
“the next major platform after phones.”
Meta Quest 3S.
As usual, Meta presented its new Quest version. I still believe these products are niche products, not much used and it shows on sales for those but also for the Apple Vision. That is what makes Orion so exciting, it transforms a niche product into a daily usable one.
Nevertheless, we have two new versions, available in various model differentiated by their power and storage capacity.
Nothing very new in the live demos, to my opinion, although some new features like an exclusive version of Meta's app for Quest - meant to be used in VR, that is.
Most importantly, Meta partnered with Microsoft to allow what the Apple Vision does with Mac, take control of your computer through the headset - available with Windows 11 computers.
Not much more; we could talk about the gaming experience or what they call "hyperscape” which creates a virtual room but those are gadgets - although the entire Quest is a gadget.
My Take.
A great event, as if this was Meta's "iPhone" moment; we will need some years and Orion to be commercialized to really know. But this event confirmed some things.
Firstly, Meta is probably the most innovative company today, working on a lot of different projects but, most importantly, on real-world use-case projects. This isn't the case for every company.
Secondly, this first fact confirms that their huge capital expenditure and Reality Labs' losses are for a good reason. And if Orion turns out to be the product they presented today and is affordable... it won't be just a gadget or a niche like the Quest is. It's crucial to see that this cash isn't wasted.
I apologize for being dropping the hammer once more as I’m sure many reading this might be Apple fans. But Meta, a social media company, is becoming everything I hoped Apple, a smartphone and tech company, would become.
Can't wait for the market to overreact so I can buy more shares.