Meta technology chief Bosworth implies company has lost focus
Andrew Bosworth AKA Boz, an advertising expert for Facebook, gives a talk at the Online Marketing Rockstars marketing trade show in Hamburg, Germany, 03 March 2017. Photo: Christian Charisius/dpa | usage worldwide (Photo by Christian Charisius/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Christian Charisius | picture alliance | Getty Images
Meta technology chief Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, one of Facebook’s earliest employees, wrote on his personal blog over the weekend that the company was more focused in its initial days, and he described some of the problems that come with getting big.
In a post titled “Focus,” Bosworth contrasted the years of startup life, when he got little sleep, kept a poor diet and had “no hobbies,” with the mature company that has many people weighing in on product features and enough money to pay for less important things.
“Resources and time were so tight that you could feel the weight of all the things you weren’t working on,” wrote Bosworth, who started the post by saying he was “something like” the 10th engineer at the company. “You had real conviction that the thing you were doing was the most important thing.”
Bosworth’s post landed just days before Meta’s fourth-quarter earnings reports, which is scheduled to land after the close of trading on Wednesday. The company is expected to report its third consecutive quarterly sales drop, with analysts projecting another decline in the first quarter. Meta lost two-thirds of its value last year.
Bosworth was promoted to CTO in 2021, replacing Mike Schroepfer, who had been with the company since 2008. Bosworth is overseeing Meta’s ambitious and costly endeavor to develop the digital world of the metaverse, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said will define the company’s future.
While he acknowledged that he doesn’t miss startup life, “I do miss the profound sense of focus,” Bosworth wrote.
With limited money and resources, “we were constantly tight on servers, on memory, and on bandwidth,” he said.
But over time, Facebook experienced some product sprawl, putting effort into too many different projects. He used nonprofits as an example, noting that in the early days employees would ask Zuckerberg to support a group or cause.
An avatar of Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Meta Platforms Inc., speaks during the virtual Meta Connect event in New York, US, on Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images
“Mark would always say no,” Bosworth wrote. “He would explain that it isn’t that we don’t care about good causes, it is that our comparative advantage wasn’t going to be making good donations.”
That changed as the company got bigger, more employees asked for Facebook contribute and there was enough money to do it. And considering that there’s nothing bad about supporting nonprofits, “we just stopped saying ‘no.'”
“I picked a cultural example here but the exact same thing happens in our products at a larger scale and with higher stakes,” Bosworth wrote.
Bosworth doesn’t specify any areas where the current version of Meta lacks focus, and he says the company has a “core feature offering that is strong.” He did offer an example of how the company can still get off track.
“A small feature idea comes up that serves a subset of the market,” Bosworth wrote. “But it isn’t too hard to do and it isn’t a bad thing, so we indulge. “
He continued, “Repeat that thought process a hundred times and you have a cluttered UI, a large team, a slow product, and no obvious path forward.”
Meta investors have been urging the company to focus on its core online ad business, which has come under pressure from a number of challenges, including a weak economy and increased competition. Brad Gerstner, the CEO of Altimeter Capital and a Meta investor, wrote in an open letter to the company in October that the company needs to “get fit and focused,” and he was critical of the hefty investment in the nascent metaverse.
In November, Meta said it would lay off over 11,000 employees as part of the company’s plans to cut costs amid a tough digital advertising market.
Xpeng CEO He Xiaopeng speaks to reporters at the electric carmaker’s stand at the IAA auto show in Munich, Germany on September 8, 2025.
Arjun Kharpal | CNBC
Germany this week played host to one of the world’s biggest auto shows — but in the heartland of Europe’s auto industry, it was buzzy Chinese electric car companies looking to outshine some of the region’s biggest brands on their home turf.
The IAA Mobility conference in Munich was packed full of companies with huge stands showing off their latest cars and technology. Among some of the biggest displays were those from Chinese electric car companies, underscoring their ambitions to expand beyond China.
Europe has become a focal point for the Asian firms. It’s a market where the traditional automakers are seen to be lagging in the development of electric vehicles, even as they ramp up releases of new cars. At the same time, Tesla, which was for so long seen as the electric vehicle market leader, has seen sales decline in the region.
Despite Chinese EV makers facing tariffs from the European Union, players from the world’s second-largest economy have responded to the ramping up of competition by setting aggressive sales and expansion targets.
“The current growth of Xpeng globally is faster than we have expected,” He Xiaopeng, the CEO of Xpeng told CNBC in an interview this week.
Aggressive expansion plans
Chinese carmakers who spoke to CNBC at the IAA show signaled their ambitious expansion plans.
Xpeng’s He said in an interview that the company is looking to launch its mass-market Mona series in Europe next year. In China, Xpeng’s Mona cars start at the equivalent of just under $17,000. Bringing this to Europe would add some serious price competition.
Meanwhile, Guangzhou Automobile Group (GAC) is targeting rapid growth of its sales in Europe. Wei Haigang, president of GAC International, told CNBC that the company aims to sell around 3,000 cars in Europe this year and at least 50,000 units by 2027. GAC also announced plans to bring two EVs — the Aion V and Aion UT — to Europe. Leapmotor was also in attendance with their own stand.
There are signs that Chinese players have made early in roads into Europe. The market share of Chinese car brands in Europe nearly doubled in the first half of the year versus the same period in 2024, though it still remains low at just over 5%, according to Jato Dynamics.
“The significant presence of Chinese electric vehicle (EV) makers at the IAA Mobility, signals their growing ambitions and confidence in the European market,” Murtuza Ali, senior analyst at Counterpoint Research, told CNBC.
Tech and gadgets in focus
Many of the Chinese car firms have positioned themselves as technology companies, much like Tesla, and their cars highlight that.
Many of the electric vehicles have big screens equipped with flashy interfaces and voice assistants. And in a bid to lure buyers, some companies have included additional gadgets.
For example, GAC’s Aion V sported a refrigerator as well as a massage function as part of the seating.
The Aion V is one of the cars GAC is launching in Europe as it looks to expand its presence in the region. The Aion V is on display at the company’s stand at the IAA Mobility auto show in Munich, Germany on September 9, 2025.
Arjun Kharpal | CNBC
This is one way that the Chinese players sought to differentiate themselves from legacy brands.
“The chances of success for Chinese automakers are strong, especially as they have an edge in terms of affordability, battery technology, and production scale,” Counterpoint’s Ali said.
Europe’s carmakers push back
Legacy carmakers sought to flex their own muscles at the IAA with Volskwagen, BMW and Mercedes having among the biggest stands at the show. Mercedes in particular had advertising displayed all across the front entrance of the event.
BMW, like the Chinese players, had a big focus on technology by talking up its so-called “superbrain architecture,” which replaces hardware with a centralized computer system. BMW, which introduced the iX3 at the event, and chipmaker Qualcomm also announced assisted driving software that the two companies co-developed.
Volkswagen and French auto firm Renault also showed off some new electric cars.
Regardless of the product blitz, there are still concerns that European companies are not moving fast enough. BMW’s new iX3 is based on the electric vehicle platform it first debuted two years ago. Meanwhile, Chinese EV makers have been quick in bringing out and launching newer models.
“A commitment to legacy structures and incrementalism has slowed its ability to build and leverage a robust EV ecosystem, leaving it behind fast moving rivals,” Tammy Madsen, professor of management at the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University, said of BMW.
While European autos have a strong brand history and their CEOs acknowledged and welcomed the competition this week in interviews with CNBC, the Chinese are not letting up.
“Europe’s automakers still hold significant brand value and legacy. The challenge for them lies in achieving production at scale and adopting new technologies faster,” Counterpoint’s Ali said.
“The Chinese surely are not waiting for anyone to catch-up and are making significant gains.”
Marc Benioff is keeping an eye on Palantir.
The co-founder and CEO of sales and customer service management software company Salesforce is well aware that investors are betting big on Palantir, which offers data management software to businesses and government agencies.
“Oh my gosh. I am so inspired by that company,” Benioff told CNBC’s Morgan Brennan in a Tuesday interview at Goldman Sachs‘ Communacopia+Technology conference in San Francisco. “I mean, not just because they have 100 times, you know, multiple on their revenue, which I would love to have that too. Maybe it’ll have 1000 times on their revenue soon.”
Salesforce, a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, remains 10 times larger than Palantir by revenue, with over $10 billion in revenue during the latest quarter. But Palantir is growing 48%, compared with 10% for Salesforce.
Benioff added that Palantir’s prices are “the most expensive enterprise software I’ve ever seen.”
“Maybe I’m not charging enough,” he said.
It wasn’t Benioff’s first time talking about Palantir. Last week, Benioff referenced Palantir’s “extraordinary” prices in an interview with CNBC’s Jim Cramer, saying Salesforce offers a “very competitive product at a much lower cost.”
The next day, TBPN podcast hosts John Coogan and Jordi Hays asked for a response from Alex Karp, Palantir’s co-founder and CEO.
“We are very focused on value creation, and we ask to be modestly compensated for that value,” Karp said.
The companies sometimes compete for government deals, and Benioff touted a recent win over Palantir for a U.S. Army contract.
Palantir started in 2003, four years after Salesforce. But while Salesforce went public in 2004, Palantir arrived on the New York Stock Exchange in 2020.
Palantir’s market capitalization stands at $406 billion, while Salesforce is worth $231 billion. And as one of the most frequently traded stocks on Robinhood, Palantir is popular with retail investors.
Salesforce shares are down 27% this year, the worst performance in large-cap tech.
Salesforce and Palantir year to date stock chart.
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