That is the topic of my latest Free Press column. Excerpt:
…in recent years they [Meta] have moved into AI in a big way. Over that same time period, the valuation of the company has risen from about $236 billion in November 2022 to almost $2 trillion at the end of this July.
The reasons for share price movements are not always transparent, but it is common consensus that AI investments are a significant reason why Meta is now worth much more. The original metaverse plans did not take off, and Facebook and Instagram are relatively mature products and they have not changed much as of late.
So the market, responding to Meta’s promises about AI, expects that it will deliver on that $2 trillion value. Yet their current Llama models are not state of the art. Meta needs something better and more competitive.
Meta thus has to justify an extra $1.8 trillion in its valuation, which of course they could lose if markets decide they are not up to the task. Spending some billions on top-quality AI personnel is easy to justify when viewed in terms of the value gain Meta already has been reaping.
And it is not just about justifying the current $2 trillion valuation. Meta possibly could be worth more yet. It probably has not escaped their attention that as of late, both Nvidia and Microsoft have had valuations of about $4 trillion. So the possibility of further upside enters the equation as well.
Keep in mind that better AI also will boost the profits Meta can receive from ads on Facebook and Instagram. Click-through rates on ads typically are small, so even a modest increase in targeting ability can mean a lot more profit. Meta does not have to achieve superintelligence to get its money back on these investments; they just need better AI. There is also a plan to put more ads on WhatsApp (currently the user experience is mostly ad-free), and that too can benefit from better AI and better ad targeting.
The general principle is that top talent is typically undervalued, if only because of egalitarian norms in pay structures.
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