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Boz to the Future Episode 12: The Future of Meta Accounts and VR with Mark Rabkin

July 18, 2022

Welcome back for the twelfth episode of Boz to the Future, a monthly podcast from Reality Labs (RL). In today’s episode, our host, Head of RL, and Meta CTO Andrew “Boz” Bosworth is joined by Mark Rabkin, VP of RL.

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Getting his start at Intel and Google, Rabkin joined Meta nearly 15 years ago—and worked for many years alongside Bosworth building out the company’s ad platform. Starting out as an engineer, Rabkin helped build products and infrastructure that enable the billions of people using Meta to make meaningful connections with businesses, every day. And with the move to Reality Labs, Rabkin has been able to tap into his engineering roots again, leading the teams building VR hardware, software, and immersive experiences here at Meta. Outside of work Rabkin is also a proud new father, and spends whatever spare time he can playing guitar for his little one.

As you’d expect, Bosworth and Rabkin take a deep dive this week into all things VR—starting with some context around our brand new Meta accounts. If you missed the news: In August, we’ll begin rolling out a new Meta account structure that gives people more flexibility and control in VR. You’ll no longer be required to log into your Meta VR devices with a Facebook account. Bosworth and Rabkin discuss why Facebook logins became standard in the first place, and why Meta accounts are a better long-term solution. No surprise, it all comes back to how best to build a community and find friends in VR.

But of course, Meta accounts are only the first of many topics covered this week. Having been with Meta for most of its existence, Bosworth and Rabkin also talk about VR and the metaverse as the latest “shift” for the company. How fast is it growing? How does it compare to the early days of mobile? And what do we mean when we call VR the next general compute platform? All that, plus Rabkin’s recommendation for the film of the summer. (Hint: It’s Top Gun.)

You can tune in to Boz to the Future on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Facebook — or right here on Tech@Facebook. We’ll see you next month for a new episode.

You can follow Bosworth on Instagram and Twitter @boztank, or find Rabkin's ongoing thoughts on the metaverse on Twitter.