I believe the metaverse is the next chapter for the internet.
And it's the next chapter for our company too.
I've been thinking a lot about what this means for our company
and who we are as we embark on this journey.
We're a company that focuses on connecting people.
While most other tech companies focus on how people interact with technology,
we focus on building technology so people can interact with each other.
One of the reasons I started Facebook was that at the time
you could use the internet to find almost anything.
Information, news, movies, music, shopping.
Except for the thing that matters most of all: people.
Today we are seen as a social media company.
But in our DNA, we are a company that builds technology to connect people.
And the metaverse is the next frontier.
Just like social networking was when we got started.
Facebook was born in a specific time and place.
A college campus. The web.
It was what we could build at the time to put people back
into our experience of technology.
But connecting was always much bigger.
From way earlier on, I remember sitting in middle school classes
sketching in my notebooks, ideas that I wanted to code when I got home.
And even though I didn't have the skill or technology to build it yet,
it was always clear that the dream was to
feel present with the people we care about.
Isn't that the ultimate promise of technology.
To be together with anyone, to be able to
teleport anywhere, and to create and experience anything?
Yet here we are in 2021
and our devices are still designed around apps, not people.
The experiences we're allowed to build and use
are more tightly controlled than ever.
And high taxes on creative new ideas are stifling.
This is not the way that we are meant to use technology.
The metaverse gives us an opportunity to change that if we build it well.
But it's going to take all of us, creators, developers, companies of all sizes.
Together, we can finally put people at the center of our technology --
and deliver an experience where we are present with each other.
Together we can create a more open platform --
with more ways to discover experiences
and more interoperability between them.
And together, we can unlock a massively bigger creative economy.
I know the internet story isn't straightforward.
Every chapter means new voices and new ideas.
And yes, there will be challenges and risks
and disruption of established interests.
But there will also be opportunities and benefits
that we can't even imagine yet.
For connection, for creation, for learning, and joy.
We'll all need to work together from the beginning to bring the best
possible version of this future to life.
A future where with just a pair of glasses,
you will be able to step beyond the
physical world and into the kinds of experiences
that we have talked about today.
I’ve been thinking a lot about our identity as we begin this next chapter.
Facebook is one of the most used products in the history of the world.
It is an iconic social media brand.
But increasingly, it just doesn't encompass everything that we do.
Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, Quest. Now Horizon, Nazaré, and more.
Building our social media apps will always be an important focus for us.
But right now, our brand is so tightly linked to
one product that it can't possibly represent everything
that we're doing today, let alone in the future.
Over time I hope that we are seen as a metaverse company.
And I want to anchor our work and our identity on what we are building towards.
We just announced that we are making a fundamental change to our company.
We're now looking at and reporting on our business as two different segments.
One for our family of apps and one for our work on future platforms.
And as part of this, it is time for us to adopt a
new company brand to encompass everything that we do.
To reflect who we are and what we hope to build,
I am proud to announce that starting today,
our company is now …
Meta.
Our mission remains the same -- it's still about bringing people together.
Our apps and their brands, they're not changing either.
And we are still the company that designs technology around people.
But now we have a new north star to help bring the metaverse to life.
And we have a new name that reflects the full breadth of what we do.
And the future that we want to help build.
From now on, we're going to be metaverse-first, not Facebook-first.
That means that over time you won't need to use Facebook to use our other services.
And as our new brand starts showing up in our products,
I hope that people come to know the Meta brand
and the future that we stand for.
I used to love studying Classics.
And the word "meta" comes from the Greek word meaning "beyond".
For me, it symbolizes that there is always more to build.
There's always a next chapter to the story.
And for us, it's a story that started in the dorm room
and grew beyond anything we could imagine.
Into a family of apps that people use to find one another,
to find their voice, to start businesses and communities
and movements that have changed the world.
I’m proud of what we've built so far and excited about what comes next -
as we move beyond what's possible today, beyond the constraints of screens,
beyond the limits of distance and physics,
and towards a future where everyone can be present with each other,
create new opportunities, and experience new things.
It's a future that is beyond any one company that will be made by all of us.
We have built things that have brought people together in new ways.
We have learned a lot from struggling with
social issues and living under closed platforms.
And now, it is time to take everything that we've learned
and help build the next chapter.
I am dedicating our energy to this
more than any other company in the world.
And if this is the future that you want to see,
then I hope that you will join us.
Because the future is going to be beyond anything we can imagine.