Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth on layoffs in the division that Mark Zuckerberg changed company’s name for; says: Failed to …
Meta chief technology officer (CTO) Andrew Bosworth is at Davos, Switzerland, for the ongoing World Economic Forum’s annual meeting. Meta CTO spoke about a range of things at the event including layoffs at the company’s Reality Labs division and shutting down of a number of studios that were working on VR titles. Bosworth said that the company is cutting its workforce because VR headset sales have failed to take off. “We’re still continuing to invest heavily in this space, but obviously, VR is growing less quickly than we hoped,” Bosworth told Alex Health in a podcast on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum. He added, “And so you want to make sure that your investment is right-sized.”The layoffs Meta’s Reality Labs division come just over four years after Facebook changed its name to Meta. In October 2021, Mark Zuckerberg changed Facebook’s name to Meta, reflecting his view that the future of work, play and socializing was going virtual, the company is making a major course correction. Meta is cutting about 10% of staff who focus on metaverse-related VR projects as part of its Reality Labs unit. As analysts say, it seems that Zuckerberg has changed his mind about what the word ‘Metaverse’ actually means: Mobile yes, smart glasses yes, but maybe not VR. A report in New York Times said that layoffs, amounting to more than 1,000 jobs, will impact about 10% of the hardware division, which makes Quest VR headsets, and the Horizon Worlds virtual social network. The studios that are closing as part of the latest changes reportedly include Armature Studio, Twisted Pixel, and Sanzaru, as well as a technical unit called Oculus Studios Central Technology. Jobs are also said to be being cut at other studios including Ouro Interactive, which Meta debuted in 2023 to build first-party content for Horizon Worlds.
Meta shuts down Horizon Workrooms
Earlier this month, Meta also shut down Horizon Workrooms, envisioned as a virtual space for workers to collaborate. The company announced it’s shutting that space down: “Meta has made the decision to discontinue Workrooms as a standalone app, effective February 16, 2026,” reads the note on its help page. Meta will also no longer sell its headsets and software as a service for businesses, another help page reads: “We are stopping sales of Meta Horizon managed services and commercial SKUs of Meta Quest, effective February 20, 2026.” For Meta Horizon managed services, the company says that existing customers can continue to access those through January 4, 2030, and that licenses will be free after February 16, 2026.
Meta announced layoffs in December 2025
Meta laid the groundwork for these layoffs in December, when the company said that it would be shifting resources within Reality Labs’ budget away from its VR initiatives toward its endeavors with AI glasses and wearable devices. “This is part of that effort, and we plan to reinvest the savings to support the growth of wearables this year,” a Meta spokesperson said, without commenting specifically on the layoffs.
