The David Lin Report · Friday, July 3, 2026
Meta has shifted its focus from the metaverse, which proved to be a money loser, to artificial intelligence (AI), aiming to build large language models (LLMs) and meta compute. Sam Roman argues that Meta faces an existential risk from AI agents, which could reduce user engagement on social media platforms. This potential decline in engagement poses a significant threat to Meta's advertising business.
“Yeah, they pulled the plug on on the metaverse because they realized they were losing too much money. The stock got absolutely destroyed in 2022. And shareholders were screaming at them to tell them, look, you got to get with the program. This is this is a money loser. I mean, so they they switched gears, they cut expenses, the stock rallied substantially.”
“And now, uh, Zuckerberg is in search of another unicorn to chase after, which is AI. This guy hasn't innovated anything since the original Facebook. He's bought everything since Instagram, WhatsApp. And now in terms of a strategy, a course correction, he's latching onto building out an LLM and building out, uh, meta compute to compete with, you know, the behemoths in the space.”
“The reality is that Meta is facing an existential risk. And that, that existential risk is AI. Because if you and I in the future are going to spend more time with our AI agent or AI agents on our phones. And they're going to be talking to them and booking flights and travel and restaurants and they're going to be organizing our days. That's less time on social media. Engagement is a massive factor that drives Meta's business. And if they start to lose that at the margin, that's a big problem for their advertising business at the margin.”