Executives at Disney, Qualcomm, Coinbase, and other companies tried to weave their unrelated businesses into the metaverse discussion on their Q3 earnings calls
Alex Sherman / CNBC : Tweets: @sherman4949 , @mayhem4markets , @sherman4949 , @markhachman , and @sherman4949 Tweets: Alex Sherman / @sherman4949 : What is the metaverse? What isn't the metaverse? https://www.cnbc.com/... @mayhem4markets : Of course executives are confused about the latest hype train. Because the #metaverse isn't a new concept, and it's never been a well-defined idea. What's different now is Wall Street is so enamored by the bubbly overtures that it's suddenly the future. https://www.cnbc.com/... Alex Sherman / @sherman4949 : The future is the metaverse. What is the metaverse? It's where X company will demonstrate how awesome it is. https://www.cnbc.com/... Mark Hachman / @markhachman : First cloud, then AI, now metaverse. The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and go. https://twitter.com/... Alex Sherman / @sherman4949 : The metaverse is gonna be awesome: Just listen to what corporate executives said about it this quarter. https://www.cnbc.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Zuckerberg had spent the summer of 2021 laying out his metaverse vision and its risks, and by Q3 earnings season the term had become the fastest way for any executive to signal futurism to investors — even for companies whose core businesses have nothing to do with VR. CNBC's Alex Sherman catalogued how far the stretch went, with Disney, Qualcomm, and Coinbase all reaching for the word on their calls.
The follow-through was real but short-lived: within a year, Disney, P&G, and LVMH had formalized the pitch by hiring chief metaverse officers. Then the floor dropped out — Decentraland land prices collapsed from ~$45 to $5 per square meter and Meta itself pivoted to efficiency — making this earnings-call moment look like the peak of the naming exercise.
First-order effects
- Disney, Qualcomm, and Coinbase each gain a narrative bridge from their actual quarterly results to the theme investors are currently rewarding, without committing new capital to it.
Second-order effects
- The framing quickly institutionalizes: large companies convert the buzzword into org charts and headcount via chief metaverse officer roles, giving the theme a corporate life beyond the earnings call.
Third-order effects
- When sentiment turns, the same companies inherit the cost of the positioning — the land-price collapse and Meta's efficiency pivot show how quickly keyword-driven strategy narratives unwind, leaving behind titles and initiatives with unclear mandates.
The trend: Corporate earnings narratives increasingly track whatever theme Wall Street is enamored with that quarter, and the metaverse cycle is an early template for how fast such positioning gets adopted — and abandoned.