What should have been a triumph for Mark Zuckerberg turned into a metaphor for Meta’s troubles. The company’s AI-powered smart glasses glitched twice on stage — once during a cooking demo, and again when Zuckerberg himself failed to answer a WhatsApp call using Meta’s neural band.

The failed demos, witnessed under the spotlight, underscored a deeper issue: Meta wants to build the next big platform, but execution keeps falling short.

In the past few years, Meta has:

• Lost billions on the Metaverse
• Struggled to expand VR beyond gamers
• Launched Threads, which quickly fizzled
• And now turned to wearable AI glasses

Unlike Apple, Google, or Amazon — each focused on one dominant product — Meta is spreading across social media, VR, AR, hardware, and AI all at once.

The result? A company chasing every future at once, while failing to secure its present.

To make matters worse, protests outside Meta’s offices are demanding child safety reforms, accusing the company of burying research on harmful effects of social media.

Glitches on stage may be minor, but symbolically they highlight a company struggling to answer the bigger call: What is Meta really? A social platform, a hardware maker, or an AI lab?

Until Zuckerberg finds that answer, Meta’s future will remain uncertain.