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Facebook Executive Hits Back at WhatsApp Co-founder Brian Acton: 'A Whole New Standard of Low-Class' (facebook.com)
Facebook's David Marcus, who until recently ran the Facebook Messenger before starting the blockchain group earlier this year, is defending the company and CEO Mark Zuckerberg after a WhatsApp founder spoke critically of his experience at the company. Marcus: [...] On the business model. I was present in a lot of these meetings. Again, Mark protected WhatsApp for a very long period of time. And you have to put this in the context of a large organization with businesses knocking on our door to have the ability to engage and communicate with their customers on WhatsApp the same way they were doing it on Messenger. During this time, it became pretty clear that while advocating for business messaging, and being given the opportunity to build and deliver on that promise, Brian actively slow-played the execution, and never truly went for it. In my view, if you're passionate about a certain path -- in this case, letting businesses message people and charging for it -- and if you have internal questions about it, then work hard to prove that your approach has legs and demonstrate the value. Don't be passive-aggressive about it. And by the way the paid messaging that WhatsApp is rolling out now sounds pretty similar to metered messaging from my point of view...
Lastly -- call me old fashioned. But I find attacking the people and company that made you a billionaire, and went to an unprecedented extent to shield and accommodate you for years, low-class. It's actually a whole new standard of low-class. I'll close by saying that as far as I'm concerned, and as a former lifelong entrepreneur and founder, there's no other large company I'd work at, and no other leader I'd work for. I want to work on hard problems that positively impact the lives of billions of people around the world. And Facebook is truly the only company that's singularly about people.
Lastly -- call me old fashioned. But I find attacking the people and company that made you a billionaire, and went to an unprecedented extent to shield and accommodate you for years, low-class. It's actually a whole new standard of low-class. I'll close by saying that as far as I'm concerned, and as a former lifelong entrepreneur and founder, there's no other large company I'd work at, and no other leader I'd work for. I want to work on hard problems that positively impact the lives of billions of people around the world. And Facebook is truly the only company that's singularly about people.
Both/all of these companies are garbage companies that take advantage of people. None of them produce anything of any real value, except eyeballs for marketing people. They're all low class.
I don't respond to AC's.
This person sure is sucking on the Zuck!
In all seriousness though, what would you expect a Facebook employee to say? That they agree with Acton? That's not the way you stay on the Facebook gravy (money) train.
Also, first post perhaps?
Seems like a perfect match for Facebook corporate culture.
How can you be a former lifelong anything? Are you dead?
He said, she said. Really don't care who said what or did x or y but what I do see here is Facebook is one king in the tech world; so if you stay in that world, you will cross paths with that King at some point so ...
This is one sack of shit asshole in Facebook's management griping about another sack of shit asshole who used to be in Facebook's management.
You're both greedy assholes who trade in other people's private data.
So, let's publish the personal information, and family information of every fucking Facebook employee, and then move the discussion on to privacy.
Fuck you Facebook .. I don't use it, don't allow my browsers to follow any of those webbugs around the web, and don't care about your apps.
I hope you all fucking die in a fire.
They drove a dump truck full of money up to my house! I'm only human!
I want to work on hard problems that positively impact the lives of billions of people around the world.
And how is Facebook positively impacting the lives of the Rohingya?
Nope, no sig
I love the "Facebook made you a billionaire therefore you need to shut up!"
Selling out your users and putting their privacy in Jeopardy is fine but trying to mitigate the damage by making sure they are aware of it when Facebook pretends they've left their acquisitions running untouched and without interference is not fine? Wrong isn't some pie to be divided up where his amount of wrong somehow lessens Facebook's wrong. His guilt in no way mitigates the wrongs of Facebook.
Thanks. I could listen to a competitor or a bitter ex talk shit about it. But instead I think I'll just let Facebook explain why it is so utterly valueless. Now I know that there's no hurry to ever try out this Whatsapp thing.
Yes, passionate about spamming. Riiight. But thanks again, since you also revealed that I should keep an eye out for the new spammer's jargon, "business messaging."
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
And Facebook is truly the only company that's singularly about *monetizing* people.
FTFY
That's rich, coming from them. Facebook has absolutely zero moral high ground to stand on. Cry me a river.
And Facebook is truly the only company that's singularly about people.
Soylent Green is singularly about people too.
Wah! You should be more grateful because we gave you money!
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
The rich bastard that donates more to archive.org will win the discussion.
"And Facebook is truly the only company that's singularly about people."
Facebook: People selling people to people.
An executive at FB embracing the company line and throwing dirt at a guy who just left trashing the company... how odd
If Trumpkin ever pulls the trigger and cans his butt-kissing, lying with a straight face, soulless mouth piece Sarah Huckabee Sanders - we've found someone just as adapt at shit spinning. David Marcus.
Facebook is about as much about people as an egg producer is about eggs. Both are products to sell.
The only reason facebook cares about people is to simply package them as products to sell to their true customers... the advertisers.
What these two ego maniac execs think or about their "new" technology that's reminiscent of a 90s instant messenger. What I want to know is will Facebook be bring back AIM and those free AOL CDs that make the best coasters.
Jeez, when billionaires fight in public it really adds to my life. Please keep reporting this thing, it would be a shame for these people to lose their free platform.
I believe him. Someone working at the top level of Facebook should be considered an authority on what's low class.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
From Marcus: "And Facebook is truly the only company that's singularly about people[.]"
To paraphrase Mark Twain in "Life on the Mississippi": "'People' is their God; how to monetize their online personalities, their religion". Seems about right. It makes the WhatsApp guy a heretic in their organization, to be sure.
"And Facebook is truly the only company that's singularly about people."
suggested branding:
Facebook - The People Company
- "We know your people"
- "We like, know people"
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Marcus prefers loyalty. I wish more people would prefer morality.
That's a whole new standard of delusional
and it's been going on above our heads for ages. What this underlines again is the new aristocrats are "CEO"s, "founder"s and the like, but they act just like the old crop. WIth even less style, teh zuck is right on that. Him included, even if he didn't include himself.
"letting businesses message people and charging for it"
"Facebook is truly the only company that's singularly about people"
At least these two statements were in two separate paragraphs and not in the same one, eh!?
Lastly -- call me old fashioned. But I find attacking the people and company that made you a billionaire, and went to an unprecedented extent to shield and accommodate you for years, low-class.
I definitely wouldn't call Marcus's attitude "old-fashioned"... I'd call it money-driven and unprincipled. He's basically saying that because someone got money from somewhere and was part of a group, they are denied the freedom to express values that don't come from a "bottom line is everything" world without being called names.
Fuck you, David Marcus, you and your soul-sucking machine can go to hell. And oh yeah, good luck with the blockchain hotness, I look forward to the doubtless onslaught of AWESOME applications of that that I'm absolutely sure you're going to cook up. Just gotta think of them first. We'll wait.
Perfect description of Facebook in 6 words.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
... and so little stomach for it.
Capitalism rewards assholes, and concentrates pure assholes at the top. No exceptions.
If you don't want to be ruled by assholes you need companies run and owned by workers, so they are free to make ethical decisions, free from the influence of absentee landlords.
This guy is the reason we don't have coolaid downunder!!! This guy drank all of it!!!
What total BS. Facebook is about *advertisers*. People are just the product Facebook delivers to them.
"Facebook is truly the only company that's singularly about people."
Oh, for Chrissakes! In the name of anything and everything holy, do he really expect anyone AT ALL to buy that load of BS? The NERVE!
Who cares? It didnâ(TM)t take facebook to make people hate them any more than radio is at fault for the rwanda genocide.
Not that facebook execs read /., but what do you suppose is the case for facebook's "positive impact" on peoples lives? (there's not a billion shareholders) I don't want to get all internet angry or start calling names, I'm really just wondering what they think they are doing that would justify this label.
Facebook isn't concerned about me unless it's getting something out of me, positive or negative, for its own benefit. I'm glad I don't work there.
Maybe they meant it in a "its a cookbook' or 'soylent green is people' kind of way ;-)
"And Facebook is truly the only company that's singularly about people."
Just like Soylent Green.
Isn't the whole point of capitalism, to maximize profit?
And isn't taking from people EVERYTHING and giving to them NOTHING the maximum profit you can make?
As long as you don't openly call it theft, of course.
(OK, we're long past that, with modern ways being, that you simply make up money [banking, stock trading] and imaginary property ["IP" mafia] and play with inflation [effectively, salary reduction] in general.)
Women expecting you to buy them dinner is such a US-American thing.
Around here, women (rightfully) feel almost insulted, if you impose yourself like that. Why would I date what's basically a prostitute at that point anyway?
It's a date! We meet to get to know each other, and there sometimes happens to be a restaurant there, so we each other some food or don't, and eat it, and pay for it. That's not part of our date. It's a side-effect of where we are. (Frankly, the best dates don't happen at restaurants anyway. Get to a cool place and do cool things! Like on top of a high building or mountain or cliff, doing some [semi-]spontaneous art!)
I'm not there to be her provider. I'm there to be that hot guy that fucks her better than anyone else, ever, and to be there for her and give her love and inspiration. And she's there for much of the same too!
You wouldn't want some rich "Lady van Gildengracht upon Thyne" to pay for your shit while you don't support yourself either, would you?
"Boi, let me pimp-slap* yo ass to the moon and back!" Said the pimp.
_ _ _ _
* Ignore the title. (Stupid politics.) Just watch the short clip, to get a perfect definition of "pimp-slap". (Filmed in the infamous red light district of Hamburg, Germany. The guy in the suit is a major pimp, and general asshole, by the way.)
This was a reasonable statement until the ridiculous Facebook praise at the very end, which made me remember that Facebook is evil and certainly doesn't have anything to teach us about class.
No, the capitalist ideal is to let the market decide. And DogDude is playing within the rules of capitalism to try to convince the market that facebook is a piece of shit and the market would be better off if they didn't use them.
Bowl of SHIT
Facebook is the suck.
TIL that if a company made you a lot of money, you are not allowed to make perfectly valid criticisms against it. Money should buy loyalty, no matter how corrupt or dishonest the source of that money turns out to be.
With that kind of attitude I'm honestly surprised Facebook isn't joined to Trumps hip.
Facebook is truly the only company that's singularly about people.
Translation: *gog gog gog glug gob slurp slurp lick lick gog gog gog slurp* MMMMPPPPPHHHHHH *gulp* *gasp* THANK YOU SIR MAY I HAVE ANOTHER
So... If Company A makes owner of Company B a billionaire (for no better reason than to buy off competition), then the owner of the latter is precluded forever from criticizing practices of the former? That's low class? And what, enabling propaganda and abusing users' data are high class? Likewise, eliminating competition?
(And next time POTUS complains of a radical leftist conspiracy amongst Big Tech, someone reminds him that Facebook is on his side -- likewise Twitter -- so he should careful about tarring with an oversized brush.)
Defining a billionaire as low class would indeed be a new standard. Has inflation really gotten that bad? Class is really only a wealth and societal position designation. Confusing class with exemplary behavior is just upper class propaganda finding fertile ground in brain rot.
When someone uses "class" that way, I thing of a gum chewing bimbo in Joisey making declarations about her thug boyfriend while polishing her nails. Claaaaass.
there's no other large company I'd work at, and no other leader I'd work for.
I wonder how long he needed to climb back down from between Zuck's cheeks?
Low-class to me is to offer a useless tool as Facebook, say it's "free to use" and then collect all sort of personal data, pictures and life details for selling for a profit.
Thank God I am going to 4 years away from your crap. I do not miss Facebook or any of its "usefulness".