Byte-based Metauniverse Business Turn? Nearly half of PICO's employees left their jobs, and several senior executives left and changed jobs.

ByteDance is rethinking the strategic positioning of ByteDance's virtual reality business PICO.

10 10/23, the reporter learned exclusively from many insiders that many core business leaders of PICO have recently left their jobs and been transferred. In the first half of this year, Ren, the vice president of PICO, was actually in a state of resignation. He was not responsible for the business management of PICO for a long time, but he was still attached to the company.

Our reporter confirmed that Ren's "flying book" is currently "resigned" in the internal system. According to informed sources, Ren will officially leave his post at the end of this year.

At present, PICO's internal business is mainly divided into marketing department, hardware department, OS product department, content and culture department and social center, among which a large number of employees have been laid off or left voluntarily.

According to internal staff, there were more than 2,000 employees at the peak of PICO, of which about 2/3 employees in the marketing department left, and the turnover rate in the technical department was slightly lower. At present, the total number of employees leaving the company is close to half of the peak period.

Later that day, the relevant person in charge of PICO replied to the newspaper, saying that the company would maintain the normal operation of its products and continue to strengthen its investment in product technology.

A number of senior executives have left.

The newspaper reporter learned exclusively that Zhou Hongwei, president of PICO, is currently in direct command of the hardware department, and the head of the OS product department is Mages, who was originally the head of Xiaomi's VR department. According to the public report in May last year, after entering PICO, Majesi became the head of the social center, responsible for its "light world" products. However, according to informed sources, social centers have lost a large number of employees, and the investment in "light world" has also been greatly reduced. Majesi has always been the head of the OS product department. However, at present, the wizards are still the heads of social centers in Feishu.

The hardest hit area of this resignation is the content and culture department of PICO. The head of the content and culture department is responsible. As one of the founding members of the team, Ren was once the product director and was regarded as one of the "elders".

After being transferred to PICO, many core cadres were transferred to PICO one after another, including Song, the head of variety show, and Wu, the entertainment director.

The paper media reporter learned that after being in a state of near resignation for a long time, the former variety director Song was transferred at the end of last year and still returns to the variety entertainment department. Wu is still in charge of PICO's video business, but there may be changes in the future. From September to June this year, at 5438+00, Liu _, the person in charge of PICO video live broadcast, left his post. In addition, Ren, the director of content products, has also left PICO and transferred to Tik Tok.

According to the newspaper, this also means that within two years after Byte announced the acquisition of PICO, a considerable number of core management from Tik Tok have left PICO.

According to public information, Zhou Hongwei founded PICO on 20 15. Graduated from Harbin Institute of Technology and worked in Goer, a fruit chain foundry giant, for ten years. After leaving Goer Acoustics, Zhou Hongwei chose to start a business and set up a VR technical team to enter the head display market. In September, 20021,ByteDance officially announced the acquisition of PICO, and entered the VR industry with high profile. Zhou Hongwei also chose to manage Pico with ByteDance.

A person familiar with the matter told the newspaper that Zhou Hongwei had recently traveled to Singapore to report the progress of PICO to the founder of ByteDance. "The high-level interest in PICO seems to be less than the previous two years, so it is expected that the future development direction of PICO will be adjusted." Another insider revealed.

It is worth noting that some insiders pointed out to the reporter that there were rumors that when ByteDance acquired PICO in 20021year, the former management of PICO would get some economic returns by signing a cooperation agreement with it, and the deadline stipulated in the cooperation agreement has not yet arrived. However, the message has not been acknowledged in bytes.

On September 27th, 2022, PICO officially released a new generation of VR all-in-one machines-Pico 4 series in China market, with the price starting from 2499 yuan. This product is the first upgraded product released by PICO after it was acquired by ByteDance. Once released, it has aroused widespread concern.

At that time, Yang Zhenyuan, vice president of ByteDance, said in an interview with the newspaper that Byte had contacted many companies in the VR industry and had the best chat with PICO. He also thinks that PICO is one of the most promising and culturally matched companies. "At that time, everyone hit it off and PICO added bytes." He believes that the reason for the matching between the two parties is mainly due to the combination of pico and byte content services.

Hyperuniverse, attack or retreat?

According to the reporter, since the company officially announced the acquisition of PICO in September, 20021,the scale of PICO team has expanded rapidly, from the initial 200 people to about 2,000 people, of which overseas teams account for about 30%.

Since the release of PICO4, there have been endless doubts about PICO. Earlier, there were rumors that due to the rapid expansion of the number of internal organizations, there were two different teams, the "Tik Tok School" and the "Pico School", and there was a factional dispute.

On June 5438+065438+ 10 last year, the relevant person in charge of PICO told the newspaper: "We attach great importance to the attention of the outside world and the feedback of the products. But for some speculations and rumors at the organizational level of the company, it can only be said that this is a guess that is not in line with the facts. "

Since the beginning of this year, PICO has experienced several rounds of layoffs. In February this year, its layoffs reached 20%-30%. According to media reports, PICO business will be closed gradually, and ByteDance will give up Metauniverse.

In this regard, 10 year123 October, ByteDance replied to the reporter that the news was untrue, PICO was operating normally and the company would invest in XR business for a long time.

Last year's explosive growth of hypercosmic business has become a headache for many big manufacturers. It is reported that Tencent began to reorganize the XR team in August this year, and plans to represent Meta's VR head display OculusQuest, referring to the cooperation between Tencent and Nintendo. The reporter learned from people close to Tencent that the news was true.

According to public information, XR refers to augmented reality, which is a collection of VR (Virtual Reality) /AR (Augmented Reality) /MR (Mixed Reality). By integrating the visual interaction technology of the three, it brings the "immersion" of seamless transition between the virtual world and the real world. XR is considered as one of the important technologies in the field of hyperuniverse.

In February of this year 16, Tencent made a large-scale adjustment to the XR business, which was regarded by the outside world as close to withdrawing from the XR business. At that time, Tencent replied to the paper that it planned to adjust the development route of self-developed hardware and optimize relevant organizations and positions in business lines. In addition to Tencent and ByteDance, many companies, including Meta, Microsoft and Aauto Quicker, have made organizational or personnel adjustments to Meta Universe and XR services in succession this year to further improve business efficiency.

Too much "burning money" is an important reason why the meta-universe business is frequently blocked inside the big factory. "VR hardware devices need to be customized. The production cost of both the core device and the whole machine is extremely high. At present, the market demand is still in the cultivation stage, and the profit path is not clear. " A PICO technician once told the paper reporter, "At present, VR development needs at least 100 people to do hardware and software, and needs continuous investment in the fields of design and manufacturing, content production and algorithm optimization. If the financial strength is insufficient and the product strength is not strong, it will face financial difficulties after several years of continuous investment, which requires long-term investment and sufficient patience. "