While Meta Platforms (META -10.56%) is one of the first companies that comes to mind when discussing the metaverse, it's far from the only key player in this space. In this segment of Backstage Pass, recorded on Jan. 11, Fool contributor Rachel Warren and Fool analyst Asit Sharma discuss.
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Rachel Warren: I think it's interesting. We've seen this habit that -- I'm going to say Meta not Facebook, I keep wanting to say that -- over the years has turned to crowd out other entrants in the space.
They just acquired them, like WhatsApp, like Instagram, and it seems that now, it's building on this new vision, and this makes sense from a business perspective. It's also poaching the best and the brightest talent [laughs] to help in building out this next iteration of its company.
I think it makes a lot of sense. I think from a business perspective, it's a brilliant move. But I think what we do see is that even some maybe newer and smaller companies that are operating in the metaverse are trying to get into the space, I think it's going to be increasingly difficult for them to do so with a company like Meta having such a tremendous presence in the space already.
I think that's been true for a very long time as the big tech giant that it is, and I think now in this other future of the virtual world, the metaverse, I think we're going to be seeing this monopolistic tendency continue with Facebook for sure.
Asit Sharma: I wonder, too, if this isn't a situation where some garage ingenuity will trump a lot of capital deployed. I think back to Steve Jobs, I can never pronounce his last name, but the co-founder [laughs] of Apple, innovating in a garage in the shadow of Hewlett Packard.
Sometimes when you have all those resources at your disposal, you are applying that into your vision of what reality should be. You are vulnerable to people who say, "Hey, there's a different reality that can exist."
I've not been impressed by Meta/Facebook's first forays into the metaverse. Now, of course, with pouring so much money and hiring these engineers, they will be able to change it at will, I guess, to maybe cater more to consumer tastes.
I don't know if any of you saw the articles a couple of weeks ago, just before the year about Apple fighting back with these $180,000 bonuses and stock compensation to anywhere between 10 and 20% of their engineer workforce.
These are going to vest over four years. They are trying to claw back and say, "Wait a minute, guys, we'll make it enticing for you to stay here." This stuff is very aggressive, the battle for top talent.
But I agree with everyone. It does show you that despite the hype around the space, the engineering process being poured into it, bodes well for the development of the technologies. I think things that we don't expect, we're not even visualizing just now, that can come about maybe in the space that Jose [Najarro, Fool contributor] mentioned, digital transformation.
