Meta’s AR Software Chief Taking Leave: What’s Next?
Meta’s head of augmented reality software is stepping down, a company spokesman told Reuters on Friday, raising questions about the company’s progress in developing a custom operating system for its planned AR glasses.
Director of engineering Don Box announced the end of his tenure at Meta internally this week, but did not specify what he would do next, according to a source familiar with the matter.
A Meta spokesperson confirmed that Box will be leaving the company at the end of this week, saying he is doing so for personal reasons. As a result of his decision, the product roadmap will not change, he added.
Box did not respond to requests for comment.
The departure of Box, a veteran engineer with experience building large technology systems since infancy, could be a setback for the progress of the operating system, a key part of Meta’s AR glass project, a source told Reuters.
Meta has planned to ship its first generation of AR glasses by next year, although they are only intended for internal use and for a select group of developers, the source said. It aims to deliver its first AR glasses to consumers in 2027.
A Meta spokesperson declined to discuss the roadmap or whether the operating system built by Box’s team would be in the first generation of AR glasses.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has described the AR glasses as a kind of magnum opus as he works to build hardware that allows access to an immersive virtual “metaverse” and replaces laptops and mobile devices.
CTO Andrew Bosworth, head of the company’s metaverse-oriented Reality Labs division, recently said that Metal still had “quite a few challenges” in building an AR product it could bring to market, and that “these things are still a few years away. away – a few, to put it mildly.”
The company has also struggled to build custom silicon for its AR/VR products, laying off some employees at Reality Labs’ custom silicon unit FAST last month.
Meta originally hired Box in 2021 to chart a path forward after the failure of its XROS project, which aimed to create a unified custom operating system for its virtual reality headsets, Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses and planned augmented reality glasses, the source said.
Box split the 300-person XROS unit into dedicated teams for each device line early last year and personally took over a team focused on AR software, according to both the source and Box’s LinkedIn profile.
Before joining Meta, Box worked at Microsoft since 2002. In his last position at Microsoft, he led mixed reality design, which included software development for HoloLens2 headsets and related AR/VR services.
Box is known for leading the creation of the Xbox One operating system and later Microsoft’s core operating system group that runs on all Windows products.
