“It looked better, yes, but it sure didn’t look like the future” was a quote taken from a recent TechCrunch article referencing Meta’s advancements in their virtual reality technology, which they unveiled at Meta Connect 2022. Expectedly, founders, engineers, and tech enthusiasts all felt compelled to share their views. Timelines yesterday were ablaze with people defending their perspectives on why Zuckerberg either was a visionary or a failure.

Unironically, this tension in ideologies sparked a few of my own thoughts.

It was peculiar to see founders and investors who typically preach “support” and “respect for the entrepreneurial pursuit” all pile on Mark’s vision. “I selectively support other founders based on {conditions}” might be a more realistic narrative here.

And I get it. Truth be told, I don’t really like Meta as a company. I deleted my Facebook and IG years ago, don’t use WhatsApp, and I’m likely not going back anytime soon. I’m not the poster child for an evangelized Meta consumer.

Yet the reality isn’t lost on me that Zuckerberg’s willingness to bring the metaverse vision into reality is another example of the entire ethos of entrepreneurship: a founder having a big vision, followed by a willingness to do whatever it takes to reach it. Why then, are Meta’s advancements toward that vision laughed at by many in the entrepreneurial community?

Outside of the issues people take with Mark as a person (which I’m not arguing here), the most common response was Mark is “investing in useless tech.” That’s an opinion I start to question; blindly dismissing a more technologically-robust future as “not going to happen” or “a waste of time” is dismissing reality.

How many of you reading this have 100% returned to your “normal life” that existed before COVID? You’re in the office 5-6 days a week, rarely have zoom meetings, and travel often for in-person gatherings?

Like it or not, the world isn’t going to return to a full sense of “pre-COVID normal.” That means entrepreneurs need to take charge of developing tools to make a remote-first future less... crappy. After all, do you really want to be taking Zoom calls forever? There has to be a better way.

This brings me to the moment that sparked this post: seeing Meta’s 2.0 Codec Avatars. They’re… insane. Responsive, beautifully designed, and almost human. There’s a bit of an uncanny valley still, but it’s very shallow.

Just take a look for yourself (GIF below or you can watch the video on my Twitter).

The issue I took with the abundant criticism of Mark, is people weren’t just shitting on him in reference to Meta’s products or his personal decisions, they were shitting on him just for trying to build something new, which is a stance I have problems with.

Trying is always worth it.

Here’s a case study to validate that thesis.