From Zoox to AR and VR, Tech Firms Are Still Splurging on Pet Projects

You might think, with headlines blaring news of mass layoffs by Meta Platforms, Amazon and other tech companies in the past few weeks, that big tech has heard the message from investors and has started to cut back. Not so fast.

A quick review of what companies like Amazon and Meta Platforms are up to shows that they’re still increasing their spending on their favorite initiatives, despite the cuts. Amazon, for instance, will boost spending on its self-driving car development unit, Zoox, in 2023, which is already soaking up close to a billion dollars a year, said two people familiar with the situation.

Meta not only will significantly increase spending at its Reality Labs division, which is dedicated to its metaverse vision, but is pouring money into artificial intelligence for advertising and business messaging. Alphabet’s Google, for its part, has said it will continue to invest in its Google Cloud unit, whose losses have grown in the past couple of quarters even as its revenue has increased. Google is also spending more on developing smartphones and other consumer devices.