A key leader for Meta’s metaverse software is leaving the company

The vice president of Meta’s social media virtual reality software Horizon, Vivek Sharma, is leaving the company, a spokesperson said Friday.

Sharma has been with Facebook’s parent company Meta for the past six years, holding senior positions in the marketplace and games, and more recently in the nascent metaverse business unit.

As vice president of Horizon, Sharma, who is based in the Seattle area, oversees various VR projects such as the social media service Horizon Worlds, which is similar to the online game Second Life that has been upgraded to virtual reality. Other Horizon products include the VR-based workplace collaboration app Horizon Workrooms and the Horizon Venues app for live events, which was moved to the main Worlds app this summer.

“Thanks to his leadership, the Horizon product group has built a strong team with an ambitious vision and is just getting started,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement. “Meta continues to be a source of great leadership development, and we’re excited to see what Vivek accomplishes in his next chapter.”

The spokesperson added that the Horizon team will now report directly to Vishal Shah, Meta’s vice president of Metaverse.

Meta is betting that the metaverse, a collection of digital worlds that people can access through VR and related augmented reality technologies, represents the next frontier of computing.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on a recent episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast that his company will debut a new VR headset in October, which is the month Meta usually holds its Connect VR conference.

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