The COO of Reality Labs is leaving Meta after nearly 11 years

Dan Reed, the main operating serviceman of Meta's Reality Labs division, is stepping down aft astir 11 years astatine the company.

Reed's departure marks different enactment alteration astatine a clip erstwhile the part faces mounting interior and outer pressure.

Reed announced his exit Wednesday successful a LinkedIn post, reflecting connected his clip gathering what helium described arsenic a "fast-growing, multibillion-dollar user exertion business" spanning AI wearables, augmented and mixed reality, and the metaverse.

"I spot SO overmuch breathtaking accidental successful this space, to which I yet mean to instrumentality to pb and turn thing chill and exciting," Reed wrote. "In the meantime, I'm precise excited aft this 20+ twelvemonth tally to instrumentality an extended interruption and walk prime clip with my woman and 2 boys, reconnect with friends and family, and recharge."

Reed, a erstwhile NBA executive, archetypal joined Meta successful 2014 to pb the company's partnerships with sports teams and athletes.

Meta did not instantly respond to a petition for comment.

Reed's departure follows Meta's large restructuring of Reality Labs earlier this year. Business Insider archetypal reported successful January that the institution began integrating Reality Labs much intimately with its halfway business. This displacement reversed parts of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's 2021 reorganization, which had positioned the radical arsenic a stand-alone, metaverse-focused division.

Under the caller structure, sales, marketing, and analytics teams that erstwhile reported to Reed were redistributed nether broader Meta leadership. Meta COO Javier Olivan present oversees the teams antecedently led by Reed, and different Reality Labs leaders person been aligned with apical institution executives, including main selling serviceman Alex Schultz and caput of partnerships Justin Osofsky.

Meta's main exertion officer, Andrew Bosworth, credited Reed astatine the clip for guiding the concern radical done a signifier of accelerated growth. An interior memo viewed by BI successful January said that Reality Labs' income roseate implicit 40% year-over-year successful 2024, and the part bushed astir each of its assertive income and idiosyncratic goals. Bosworth called Reed's enactment "a large part" of that success.

Despite those gains, Reality Labs remains a fiscal sinkhole for Meta. The division, which includes the Quest headsets, Horizon Worlds, and Meta's Ray-Ban astute glasses, has racked up more than $60 cardinal successful losses since 2020.

Last month, Meta laid disconnected staff crossed Reality Labs, including teams moving connected VR gaming and the Supernatural fittingness app.

Internally, Bosworth has described 2025 arsenic "the astir critical" twelvemonth for the part and said that Meta's ambitious metaverse bets could either validate years of concern oregon beryllium remembered arsenic a "legendary misadventure."

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