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Altimeter Capital Chair and CEO Brad Gerstner said in an open letter to the company and CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Monday that Meta has too many employees and is moving too slowly to retain the confidence of investors.

The Meta investor recommended a plan to get the company’s “mojo back,” including reducing headcount expenses by 20% and limiting the company’s pricey investments in “metaverse” technology — VR software and hardware — to no more than $5 billion per year.

“Meta needs to re-build confidence with investors, employees and the tech community in order to attract, inspire, and retain the best people in the world,” Gerstner wrote in the letter. “In short, Meta needs to get fit and focused.”

The letter is the latest sign that Meta investors are starting to express reservations about the company’s recent performance. Meta stock is down over 61% in 2022.

At the end of the second quarter this year, Altimeter Capital held more than 2 million shares of Meta.

It’s also a vote of less confidence about the company’s ambitions in the world of virtual and augmented reality. Meta changed its company name from Facebook to better focus on its VR hardware and software and is spending $10 billion per year on the technology.

On Oct. 11, Meta announced a new high-end VR headset, the Quest Pro. However, there are few signs that VR or some of the company’s metaverse apps, such as Horizon Worlds, are catching on with the public beyond early adopters.

“In addition, people are confused by what the metaverse even means,” Gerstner wrote. “If the company were investing $1-2B per year into this project, then that confusion might not even be a problem.”

He said the money the company is currently spending to develop VR could add up for a decade before it comes to fruition.

“An estimated $100B+ investment in an unknown future is super-sized and terrifying, even by Silicon Valley standards,” Gerstner wrote.

Ultimately, Gerstner said, Meta has too many people and is spending too much on capital expenditures. If Meta was able to control those costs, he said, then it could double its free cash flow and improve its share price.

He said a 20% cut in employee spending would take Meta back to the levels of staffing it had last year and argued that the company can’t spend as it used to since the cost of capital and interest rates have risen recently.

In the letter, Gerstner said Altimeter Capital doesn’t have demands and simply wants to engage with Meta management.

Meta didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

“We think the recommendations outlined above will lead to a leaner, more productive, and more focused company — a company that regains its confidence and momentum,” Gerstner wrote.

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Why Jim Cramer wants to load up on more shares of this DuPont spinoff

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Why Jim Cramer wants to load up on more shares of this DuPont spinoff

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Palantir tops estimates, boosts fourth-quarter guidance on AI adoption

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Palantir tops estimates, boosts fourth-quarter guidance on AI adoption

Alex Karp, chief executive officer of Palantir Technologies Inc., speaks during the AIPCon conference in Palo Alto, California, US, on March 13, 2025.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Palantir reported quarterly results that topped analysts’ estimates and issued better-than-expected guidance for the fourth quarter, attributing much of its strength to artificial intelligence. The stock rose about 1% in extended trading.

Here’s how the company did compared to LSEG estimates:

Earnings per share: 21 cents adjusted vs. 17 cents expected

Revenues: $1.18 billion vs. $1.09 billion expected

Palantir, which builds analytics tools for large companies and government agencies, said it expects revenue of about $1.33 billion for the current period, exceeding the $1.19 billion expected by analysts, according to LSEG.

The optimistic guidance comes even as the government shutdown stretches into its second calendar month, and potentially threatens some key contracts. Revenue in Palantir’s U.S. government business grew 52% in the quarter from a year ago to $486 million.

Government sales, particularly from military agencies, have been central to Palantir’s ongoing ascent. Over the years, Palantir has steadily beat out major legacy government contractors, and recently landed a deal worth up to $10 billion contract with the U.S. Army.

Palantir has also faced criticism over how its tools are being used by government agencies, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Total revenue in the quarter jumped 63% from $725.5 million a year ago, exceeding $1 billion for the second straight quarter. Net income more than tripled to $475.6 million, or 18 cents per share, from $143.5 million, or 6 cents per share, a year earlier.

For the full year, Palantir now expects about $4.4 billion in sales, topping the $4.17 billion forecast by Wall Street. The company also bumped up its full-year free cash flow outlook to between $1.9 billion and $2.1 billion.

Palantir’s U.S. commercial business more than doubled to $397 million. Total contract value for U.S. commercial deals closed more than quadrupled to $1.31 billion. Over the last few weeks, the company has announced new partnerships with Snowflake, Lumen and Nvidia.

Retail investors have helped drive Palantir’s skyrocketing stock price to new heights. The shares have surged more than 170% this year, lifting the company’s market cap past $490 billion and cementing the company among the most valuable technology names in the world.

Analysts have raised concerns about the stock, which trades at an extreme multiple relative to technology behemoths with far more revenue. In a letter to shareholders, CEO Alex Karp called out the “detractors” who have been “left in a kind of deranged and self-destructive befuddlement.”

“The reality is that Palantir has made it possible for retail investors to achieve rates of return previously limited to the most successful venture capitalists in Palo Alto,” he wrote. “And we have done so through authentic and substantive growth.”

In an interview with CNBC’s Morgan Brennan on Monday, Karp acknowledged that there’s excess in the AI market today and that some companies are eventually going to feel the pain.

“The strong companies are going to get much stronger, and the people pretending they’re doing stuff are going to disappear very quickly,” Karp said.

WATCH: D.A. Davidson’s Luria on Palantir

Palantir is the best software company and it's not even close, says D.A. Davidson's Gil Luria

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Ether falls 7% following a multimillion dollar hack of a decentralized finance protocol

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Ether falls 7% following a multimillion dollar hack of a decentralized finance protocol

Representation of Ethereum, with its native cryptocurrency ether.

Dado Ruvic | Reuters

Ether fell as much as 9% on Monday, slipping below its critical $3,600 support level, shortly after a multimillion dollar hack affected a protocol on the token’s native network. 

The cryptocurrency, which is issued on Ethereum, was last down 6.6% at around $3,600, CoinMetrics data shows. That’s roughly 25% off its high of $4,885 hit on August 22

The coin’s tumble came after Ethereum-based decentralized finance protocol Balancer on Monday lost possibly more than $100 million in a hack. The exploit marks the latest in a series of bearish events that have put digital assets investors on tenterhooks over the past few weeks.

In mid-October, U.S. President Donald Trump announced “massive” tariffs on China over its restriction of rare earth exports, kicking off investors’ flight from crypto to risk-off assets such as gold. And although the president later walked back that threat, his comments sparked a sell-off that triggered cascading liquidations of highly leveraged digital asset positions

Last week, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell cautioned investors about expecting future rate cuts, adding to existing bearish market sentiment.     

“These events have put investors on uneasy footing as we roll into November,” Juan Leon, senior investment strategist at Bitwise, told CNBC. “Macro volatility notwithstanding, this October’s drawdown appears to have been a healthy, albeit sharp, de-leveraging event that flushed speculative excess from the market.”

Some stocks linked to digital assets are also coming under pressure. Coinbase shares were down nearly 4%, while Bitcoin treasury firm Strategy edged down more than 1%.   

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