Do you develop it yourself or buy it directly? This is an old-fashioned business problem, but if the purchase price is as high as billions of dollars, then perhaps this is the question that Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg must answer.
The founder and executive director of the social networking giant recently stated that Facebook may prefer to build its own virtual reality solution instead of spending $2 billion to acquire Oculus VR.
Zuckerberg recently received an interview with Sam Altman, president of incubator company Y Combinator, and discussed some of the "crazy" things Facebook has done. Zuckerberg also immediately referred to Oculus's acquisition and disclosed some little-known insider stories.
He said: "We used a lot of money to acquire the Oculus team. I do think you know, um, if we can better build some expertise and develop it internally, then maybe we don't need to do that (acquire Oculus )".
Zuckerberg continued: "As a company, they were not ready to develop virtual reality at the time. You know that Oculus is the most talented team to deal with this issue, so it is reasonable to make such a big decision. “
However, he believes that the lack of professional responsibility lies with him.
Zuckerberg said: "As a CEO, your task is not to do these crazy things ..... Of course, this is inevitable, you can not know in advance all things."
But Facebook’s $2 billion acquisition of Oculus VR seems to be starting to pay off. Facebook helped Oculus accelerate the R&D process and launched the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. Samsung and its Gear VR are now Oculus's main partners. Facebook is integrating virtual reality into the future of its vast social network.
However, Zuckerberg's long-term strategic goal seems to be to make billions of dollars in gambling as little as possible, and more often to conduct internal research and development. Facebook recently built a new R&D lab and is continuing to develop the large UAV Aquila.