WTF Is Going On With Meta — and Why Is the Company Giving Me Miley Cyrus Vibes?

When a company loses its narrative, it is closer than ever to losing its audience.

Every headline about Meta lately feels like another plot twist in a story the company isn’t telling. Layoffs. Lawsuits. Billion‑dollar pivots. A CEO who feels more like a distant monarch than a mission‑driven founder. I’m no longer sure who they are or what they’re trying to do — and that’s a strange place to be with a company that once defined how the world connects.

And oddly enough, it reminds me of Miley Cyrus.

Miley Cyrus and the Problem of Reinvention Without Direction

Miley just released a stunning new song called “Younger You.” It’s raw, emotional, beautifully sung — one of the best things she’s ever done. And I almost missed it.

Not because she isn’t talented. She’s brilliant. Not because she isn’t relevant. She absolutely is. But because she’s an enigma.

You never know what she’ll do next — rock, pop, country, soul, shock‑pop, something else entirely. Some eras are transcendent. Some are confusing. And because the shifts are so dramatic, it’s a gamble whether people will tune in for the next chapter.

That’s the vibe I get from Meta and Mark Zuckerberg right now.

A company with enormous talent, enormous resources, enormous potential — but no clear through‑line. No stable identity. No sense of what the next era will sound like or whether the audience will still be there for it.

And Zuckerberg himself? He was once the earnest founder building a social network for connection. Then the metaverse visionary. Then the VR evangelist. Then the AI maximalist. Then the MMA hobbyist. Then the billionaire buying compounds and islands. Then the CEO talking about replacing himself with an AI agent.

None of these choices are inherently wrong. But the through‑line disappeared.

When the frontman keeps changing genres, the audience eventually stops following.

Beyoncé and Elon Musk: Reinvention With a Center of Gravity

Now contrast that with Beyoncé.

She can pivot into country, house, soul, or something entirely new and people stay with her. Not because every choice is perfect, but because her identity is coherent. You know the ambition behind the work. You know the level of craft. You know the worldview. Reinvention doesn’t feel like chaos — it feels like evolution.

Elon Musk is the same archetype in tech.

He misses hard. He overpromises. He makes awkward gestures. He launches tunnels that go nowhere. He picks fights he doesn’t need to pick. But people still understand what he’s trying to build. They know his “sound.” They know the mission. They know the through‑line.

You don’t have to agree with him to get him. That’s what narrative clarity looks like.

Phish and LinkedIn: The Power of Knowing Your Sound

And then there’s Phish.

Not trendy. Not reinventing themselves every two years. Not on magazine covers. I couldn’t tell you the last time they released an album. But they sell out show after show because people know exactly what they’re going to get. I’m even seeing them at Merriweather Post this summer — not because I expect surprises, but because I know the experience will be exactly what it’s supposed to be.

That’s LinkedIn.

Steady. Predictable. Unflashy. Deeply trusted. It doesn’t chase fads. It doesn’t rename itself. It doesn’t try to bend culture to its will. It just keeps doing the same thing at a high level — and because of that, its audience knows exactly what to expect.

LinkedIn’s consistency is its credibility. Meta’s reinvention has become its volatility — and that’s a precarious place for any company to live.

So What Does This All Mean?

It sounds like a strange way to talk about Meta, LinkedIn, Elon Musk, or the broader tech landscape. But at its core, the technology and the music don’t matter.

This is a story about identity, narrative discipline, and what happens when a company forgets the sound that made people believe in it in the first place.

And Meta’s recent headlines tell a confusing story that makes me doubt their ability to succeed in the future:

• Layoffs across Facebook, Reality Labs, recruiting, sales, and global operations

• A $375M penalty in a child‑safety case

• Another trial loss in Los Angeles

• A quiet retreat from the metaverse after tens of billions in losses

• A hard pivot into AI with no clear articulation of what the pivot means

• A CEO whose public persona feels increasingly disconnected from the mission

None of these events are fatal for a company of Meta’s size. But together they create an uneasy feeling that might cause investors, employees, and users to turn the dial to a different station:

Meta has lost control of its own narrative.

A company can survive failed bets. A company can survive bad headlines. A company can survive layoffs.

What it can’t survive is becoming a company people no longer understand.

Where Storytelling — and Comms — Actually Matter

A company’s story is not a garnish. It’s not the press release. It’s not the tagline.

It’s the operating system.

It tells employees what they’re building. It tells customers why they should care. It tells the world what to expect next.

When the story is clear, people forgive mistakes. When the story is consistent, people trust the pivots. When the story is honest, people stay with you through the hard parts.

Meta doesn’t have a story right now. It has headlines. It has ambition. It has money. But it doesn’t have a narrative anyone can follow.

That’s not a product problem. That’s not a strategy problem. That’s a communications problem.

And it’s the kind of problem only comms can fix.

The Real Lesson for Leaders

Every company has to choose what kind of artist it wants to be.

You can be the pop star — bold, reinventive, chasing the next frontier. You can be the jam band — steady, reliable, building trust through consistency.

But you can’t, with extremely rare exceptions, be both at the same time. And you certainly can’t pivot every six months and expect people to stay with you.

Meta can survive lawsuits, layoffs, and failed bets. What it can’t survive is becoming a company people no longer understand.

Until it rebuilds its story — and until Zuckerberg rebuilds trust — the music won’t land.