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

baoha 8y ago
Definitely not the loser who used a throwaway account
bertil 8y ago
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 8y ago
  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 8y ago
    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-zuckerberg-whatsapp-messenger-ceo-blockchain https://www.recode.net/2018/5/8/17330226/facebook-reorg-mark... 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.
- privacypoller 8y ago
  >> This move showed that Facebook was serious when they meant that Messenger will be a standalone project... except this announcement is about how he's leaving the project - what messages does that send? Maybe it's time for a "mission accomplished" banner for the messenger team.
dandandans 8y ago
He was also one of the lead architects of the Genesis Project.
- SahAssar 8y ago
  Which was/is?
  - scruffyherder 8y ago
    Don't insult my intelligence Kirk

Definitely not the loser who used a throwaway account

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 8y ago
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 8y ago
  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-zuckerberg-whatsapp-messenger-ceo-blockchain https://www.recode.net/2018/5/8/17330226/facebook-reorg-mark... 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.
privacypoller 8y ago
>> This move showed that Facebook was serious when they meant that Messenger will be a standalone project... except this announcement is about how he's leaving the project - what messages does that send? Maybe it's time for a "mission accomplished" banner for the messenger team.

dandandans 8y ago

He was also one of the lead architects of the Genesis Project.

SahAssar 8y ago
Which was/is?
- scruffyherder 8y ago
  Don't insult my intelligence Kirk