Mark Zuckerberg calls his employees 'Metamates' in new memo about company values

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg referred to his employees as “Metamates” when he unveiled new principles and values to work at Meta Platforms Inc. This week, Zuckerberg attempted to encourage his workforce by using phrases such as “move fast”, “build awesome things” and “live in the future”. This comes despite the company is presently grappling with the increasing challenges in its sudden shift from a social media platform towards virtual reality and the “metaverse”.

According to The Guardian, Zuckerberg on Tuesday unveiled a number of new slogans and internal branding changes at an all-hands meeting. Additionally, in a post shared on the Facebook page, Meta CEO said that his company was now “a metaverse company, building the future of social connection” instead of being just a social media company. Furthermore, the firm is now addressing its employees as “metamates”. The media outlet stated that one of the executives think ‘metamates’ is a reference to the naval slogan “ship, shipmate, self”.

Zuckerberg wanted to calibrate the policies of Meta

The Tuesday meeting following the recent name change of the company where Zuckerberg expressed that he wanted to calibrate the policies of the company. It is pertinent to note that the values and policies of the company, previously called Facebook, has not been updated since 2007, stated the media outlet. Even though media reports indicated that Metaverse is facing issues on the investors’ front, Zuckerberg called on workers to “focus on long-term impact”. As per The Guardian, Meta CEO’s remarks are perhaps a nod to investor concerns about the sudden fallout from the changes.

“‘Focus on long-term impact’ emphasizes long-term thinking and encourages us to extend the timeline for the impact we have, rather than optimizing for near-term wins,” Zuckerberg wrote in his post. “We should take on the challenges that will be the most impactful, even if the full results won’t be seen for years.”

The Tuesday meeting hosted by Zuckerberg came in the backdrop of existing employees in the company confronting the rapid drift away from the social media business even though several years were spent in building one of the biggest tech giants. As per the report, engineers at Instagram and Facebook have been motivated to apply for jobs in metaverse and artificial reality departments of the company. Meanwhile, Meta itself has hired thousands of new workers from rival firms including Apple. 

Image: AP