Meta's Problem Isn't Money. It's Imagination. ft. Irena Cronin, CEO of Infinite Retina

About this episode

Irena Cronin has been studying XR since 2016 — first as Robert Scoble's co-author, now as CEO of Infinite Retina, consulting for clients from IKEA's labs division to a major law firm tracking the industry. She joins Charlie, Ted, and Rony for a blunt assessment of how the biggest companies in tech actually operate.

The centerpiece is Rony's question: Meta has spent roughly $120 billion on Reality Labs since acquiring Oculus. Where did it all go? Irena's answer is unsparing — complete mismanagement, no follow-up, and a lack of imagination that money can't fix. Apple gets a different diagnosis. Irena tracked the Vision Pro through hundreds of iterations since 2019 and predicted exactly how it would land. Her real news: it isn't dead. People inside Apple are still working on it intensely while the glasses project ramps up. The news segment covers OpenAI's Apple IP scandal and whether the Valley now operates in a post-IP world.

Key Moments:

[00:01:30] OpenAI caught in Apple's cookie jar — IP theft accusations on the eve of the IPO

[00:05:00] Sherlocking and the post-IP world — how big companies strip-mine startups through fake M&A talks

[00:12:00] AI regulation — Hassabis, Altman, and Amodei; Rony's case for why the public gets Cessnas, not F-47s

[00:18:45] Irena joins — Infinite Retina, IKEA, and why physical AI is just spatial computing renamed

[00:24:30] Why isn't anyone afraid of Google? — fifteen years of planetary data and no strategy to use it

[00:33:30] Where did Meta's $120 billion go? — "complete mismanagement" and a failure of imagination

[00:38:00] The Vision Pro isn't dead — Apple is still working on it intensely as the glasses ramp up

[00:41:45] Why is XR so obscenely hard? — the industry chased consumers before enterprise

[00:44:30] The display is everything — why smart glasses "go bonkers" the moment AR hits the lens

Brought to you by Zappar and Mattercraft, the leading visual development environment for immersive 3D web experiences. Start building at mattercraft.io.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.