
David Marcus Leaves Messenger to Focus on Blockchain Within Facebook - tin7in
https://www.facebook.com/davidm/posts/10160585531500195
======
paulsutter
This article is vastly more informative:

[https://www.recode.net/2018/5/8/17330226/facebook-reorg-
mark...](https://www.recode.net/2018/5/8/17330226/facebook-reorg-mark-
zuckerberg-whatsapp-messenger-ceo-blockchain)

This is part of a major reorg. David is on the board of Coinbase, which could
explain his interest, but by any reading he’s getting much less responsibility
(going from 1B daily actives to 0)

~~~
product50
These guys don't think like that. They think about the future - not the past.
By any means, David Marcus was killing it at Messenger.

~~~
WisNorCan
I remember a presentation where he shared that messaging will become the
primary way we get information and transact.

Rather than going to Amazon - you could just tell a chat bot to buy you a
book. I don’t think the vision has come true at all.

~~~
escap
you mean like "Hey Alexa, order me this book ?"

~~~
WisNorCan
I mean like "Hey Facebook Messenger, order me this book". The vision was about
bypassing Amazon (and the Internet) and having Messenger at the heart of
commerce.

~~~
greenyoda
If Facebook becomes a middleman for Amazon (or some other retailer), they're
going to want a cut of the transaction, so going directly to Amazon would
probably get you a better deal (or at least fewer ads). And it's no easier to
buy something through a Facebook app than through an Amazon app. (If people
really want to type "buy me book X", Amazon can add that to their own app very
easily.) So it's not clear what value Facebook would be adding here.

(I don't think that Facebook would actually want to be the retailer in this
transaction - that would involve competing with Amazon at something that
Amazon is very good at and Facebook knows nothing about, like warehousing,
shipping, purchasing, etc... and requires billions of dollars to build. So I
don't see Facebook having any role except being a middleman.)

------
chickenfries
I remember when I interned for PayPal, one of my first exposures to corporate
communication was an all company email from David Marcus, where he mentioned
that he had seen PayPal employees not paying with PayPal at places on the
corporate campus that accepted PayPal, and he suggested that they should find
other jobs.

~~~
dvdhnt
Well, that’s not very good leadership. You shouldn’t be pressuring your
employees into using your preferred payment provider or financial institution.

~~~
mandeepj
> preferred payment provider

This was not about a payment provider. It was about their employer. If you
can't promote your own product then Marcus was right - go find something else
to do

~~~
PhasmaFelis
> _If you can 't promote your own product then Marcus was right - go find
> something else to do_

As a developer, should I also quit if I don't want to vacuum the carpets or
restock the supply cabinet? If you need your product promoted, maybe hire
someone with a marketing degree.

~~~
hackinthebochs
No, but you should quit if you've created a product that you wouldn't even use
and have no interest in fixing it.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Why would you assume that any random PayPal employee (a) was directly involved
in the point-of-sale payment system, (b) actively dislikes the PoS system (as
opposed to simply seeing no advantage over their existing debit card), (c) has
the ability and authority to fix whatever they think is wrong?

This notion that it should be mandatory to love your company and its products
is so fucking Orwellian.

~~~
chickenfries
I don't now why you're being downvoted. The vast majority of PayPal employees
had nothing to do with PayPal's POS system. This isn't some start up with one
product.

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deft
What purpose does a company with a centralized service have for "blockchain".
Apparently even tech leaders have no idea what they're talking about.

~~~
product50
This is what you think today. Tomorrow, when new apps are developed by FB via
blockchain, you'd be like that seemed so obvious in the hindsight. We are
early on blockchain - there are a lot of hidden use cases and apps waiting to
be built.

~~~
jonny_eh
> there are a lot of hidden use cases

Not much different from no use cases, at least from where I'm standing.

People compare this to the early 90s of the internet, except even then early
internet was EXTREMELY useful, even with the limited access and content.

~~~
product50
Wait and watch. You will most likely have to eat your words. Most people are
like you - they think they know a lot and are not open to the possibility how
technology can evolve and new use cases can emerge.

------
baxtr
Somehow I’m missing AI in the equation (and in his new title). I think
Blockchain based AI will solve all remaining puzzles out there

~~~
vertexFarm
How do you figure?

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canistr
What you have to understand is that Facebook is effectively the defacto global
identity system. Russian bots and astroturfing aside, it's still the most
widely used and deployed identity verification service around that is
borderless and not government controlled.

Yes, they don't have penetration in every country in the world (i.e. in
China). But they effectively own identity services in the Western world. For
blockchains, one of the key gaps in adoption is validating and verifying real
users.

If I'm one of the blockchain startups doing identity verification such as
Civic or Status, I'd be very worried right now that the 500 pound gorilla is
getting into the game.

------
bertil
I am the first person to admire the solution to Byzantine Generals but to
wonder what Blockchain can do that a centralised system can. However, Marcus
knows that very well -- so I suspect the move corresponds to a core strategic
shift for the company. Some use cases that would make sense:

\- allow Facebook users to pay each other using BitCoin & Co.(certainly the
key feature as Messenger killer and under-utilised feature is its payment
option, and Markus’ past at PayPal)

\- allow Ethereum & Co. to leverage Facebook Identity (for instance, define
“someone” as an active Facebook account with at least 50 active friends, the
way I believe Tinder does) for their contracts;

\- find a way to run a Facebook-compatible version of Mastodon/Diaspora/etc.
off Smart contracts, allowing privacy-conscious individuals to host their
social media-like experience on a platform compatible with Facebook but
without a identifiable central repository or hard to maintain decentralised
structure.

Only the last one is something that would make Marcus excited enough to leave
Messenger. The first one is a Hackathon idea, the second probably a project
that makes sense once Ethereum (for all its merits) has more compelling use
case than a cat-collectibles to its name.

~~~
sine
Why would anyone want to use a cryptocoin though a service like facebook?

Venmo / ZuckBucks / Paypal / Patron all are much simpler and more efficent for
payments. Plus you don't have to buy the cryptocoins from someone who
generated nearly for free and then and then jacked up the price, with Venmo
etc it's instant and hassle free.

It never ceases to amaze me to see Bitcoin / Ethereum users try to come up
with what-if services in an effort to trick others into thinking the database
token is worth anything to other people.

~~~
lapnitnelav
If you look at what WeChat has achieved, I can see the appeal (from your
average user POV) of having only one app for everything. So a Facecoin would
make lot of sense.

------
blindwatchmaker
Has Messenger caught up to (or aiming to catch up to) wechat in terms of
functionality and scope yet? I remember a lot of hubub about bots and
conversational commerce.

------
jameslevy
The best way to think of this may be that Mark and the executives at FB are
like a VC firm funding a new skunkworks project in a high-risk, high-reward
category. Let's say there is a 10% chance that blockchain ends up being
incredibly relevant to the future of social networks. It would make sense for
FB to make what amounts to a seed investment in the space, knowing that it
could very likely not amount to anything.

------
Steeeve
As if Facebook wasn't already eating more than it's share of battery life.

~~~
wepple
I read this as a metaphor and it seemed quite apt.

------
debt
Seems him and Jan were at odds about how to integrate Messenger with WhatsApp.

Jan leaves with some bombastic statement seeming to indicate he’s gonna go
start a new messaging venture.

Now the head of Facebook’s other messaging property leaves less than a month a
later for a crypto startup.

~~~
lazzlazzlazz
Crypto startup? The new blockchain-related role is within Facebook.

~~~
debt
Ah yeah you're right. Leads me to believe Marcus is trying to undermine Yan's
new venture; whatever that will be. Those guys did not like each other.

------
lainga
Note: this is the former PayPal president, not Carol Marcus' son.

~~~
pavlov
That gives a whole new meaning to "genesis block".

~~~
polynomial
Underrated comment.

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bigiain
So the head of "encrypted messaging" at Facebook is now on a "this will go
down on your permanent blockchain record" project. WCPGW???

------
kunle
Facebook will buy Coinbase within the next 18 months.

~~~
sparkie
If they wait 18 months, it will be Coinbase buying Facebook.

~~~
jonny_eh
Holy cow, what has HN become?

~~~
sparkie
Humorless, apparently.

~~~
jonny_eh
HN has always been humourless, and we like it that way!

------
kerng
Facebook working on a blockchain project sounds as much in the public interest
as Microsoft in the mid 90s trying to build MSN, their own version of the WWW.

------
throwaway84742
Who is “David Marcus” and why should anybody care?

~~~
bertil
David Marcus was a senior executive at PayPal and was poached to lead
Messenger. This move showed that Facebook was serious when they meant that
Messenger will be a standalone project, with its own features, strategy, etc.
and would have a different app, a different social graph than Facebook. He’s
among top 30 people you should know if you care about movers and shakers in
the Silicon Valley — and probably the most influential French person on that
list, with Yann LeCun.

He’s a key player at Facebook and this is a surprising move. I care because I
care about the company, but I agree with you that for non-Facebook-
Kremlinologists, it’s minor news.

~~~
throwaway84742
Thanks for the explanation. I know a bit of Google Kremlinology, but FB is
almost completely opaque to me, even though I’m a shareholder.

~~~
bertil
There was a big shake-up announced yesterday and this is one of the best
cover:

[https://www.recode.net/2018/5/8/17330226/facebook-reorg-
mark...](https://www.recode.net/2018/5/8/17330226/facebook-reorg-mark-
zuckerberg-whatsapp-messenger-ceo-blockchain)

Happy to provide some confirmation and context -- but where I think Facebook
is remarkable (not unlike Google) is that internal management systems allow
such a major change to be mostly painless.

And, yes, I should have included Jérôme Pesenti to the list of influential
French people at Facebook: he replaced Yann LeCun as the manager of Facebook
AI Research, because Yann is a researcher, happy to manage a dozen post docs,
not someone who wants to manage a team of hundreds of researchers.

