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.

Comments

as a former lifelong entrepreneur and founder

[Bradmont]

as a former lifelong entrepreneur and founder

How can you be a former lifelong anything? Are you dead?

Is that what the kid are calling it these days?

[drew_kime]

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?

Facebook spokesman commits public suicide

[Cajun Hell]

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.

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.

if you're passionate about a certain path -- in this case, letting businesses message people and charging for it

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."

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I would say that Acton built the value, otherwise FB wouldn"t have paid that much or wanted it that bad. So FB didn"t make him a billionaire, Acton did it himself.

Re:Facebook exec calling anyone low class.

[Darinbob]

It's very similar to "I bought you dinner so now I expect something from you!"