META

Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) is a technology company founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg as Facebook in a Harvard University dorm room. Originally launched as a social networking platform for college students, the company rapidly expanded to become the world's largest social media conglomerate. Meta went public in 2012 and has since grown through strategic acquisitions including Instagram (2012), WhatsApp (2014), and Oculus VR (2014). In October 2021, the company rebranded from Facebook, Inc. to Meta Platforms, Inc., signaling its strategic pivot toward building the "metaverse" - a collection of virtual worlds where people can interact through digital avatars. Today, Meta operates as a dual-focused technology giant, maintaining its dominance in social media while simultaneously investing heavily in artificial intelligence and virtual/augmented reality technologies.