Schroepfer: Meta's Portal Failed Because Dedicated Video Chat Market Was Too Small
Mike Schroepfer · Catalyst Live at SF Climate Week · May 1, 2025 · at 8:20
Former Meta CTO Mike Schroepfer explains that successful consumer hardware requires both high customer love and a massive underlying addressable problem.
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“We built this thing at medical or Facebook at the time called the portal. And it was a video chat device and it was amazing. It was basically center stage before you had it. You could stick it in the corner and video chat with your kids and it would follow you around. If you talk to people, love this box product, they love it. And they tell all their friends about it, but a like dedicated video chat device just wasn't a big enough market. Everyone's like, well, I can kind of use my iPad. It's like good enough. Right. So that, that cost one, but not the other.”
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