6 ms·

Facebook poaches PayPal president David Marcus to run Messenger

62 points by slckfielder08 12y ago

Alupis 12y ago
Seems odd, that a big payment service's exec would get poached to head-up a chat service (likely implemented using XMPP). I mean, if FB was serious about chat, wasn't there an exec at a chat-focused company that would have been a better fit? Also, why would the President of PayPal leave (his Top-dog position) to take on a head of a mere department at another company? Also seems odd...
- simonk 12y ago
  Did you see what his old company did? Payments through mobile phones.
  - Alupis 12y ago
    Yes I did... but that is still not a chat business. Twitter, WhatsApp, SnapChat... all their executives would have been more of a natural fit.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - gohrt 12y ago
      You are making a very superficial judgment. If you want to copy WhatApp, there are many options. If you want someone to invent something next-gen...
    - boomzilla 12y ago
      Meaning FB is getting into payment, or some sort of credit transferring via the Messenger app. I am actually surprised it took this long for FB to revive the doomed FB credit service. I mean, by now FB probably has more info about many people than banks and debt collectors.
zaidf 12y ago
This is a huge, huge loss for PayPal.
mcintyre1994 12y ago
It's interesting that according to the FT article mentioned [0] the license is for Europe - and they're talking with UK payments companies. I'm not sure about the rest of Europe, but in the UK I don't imagine a lot of interest - payments are easy by bank transfer. Paying to other European countries isn't great via the banks, I imagine most people use something like Paypal now. But I don't think international payments are likely to be a big part of Facebook realistically. The license is apparently valid throughout Europe though so maybe other countries have poorer bank transfer systems and this would be better. [0] It's paywalled, so techcrunch discussion: http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/facebook-emoney-whatsapp-remittance/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/facebook-emoney-whatsapp-re... , FT article : http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0e0ef050-c16a-11e3-97b2-00144feabdc0.html#axzz34BQwTwv1 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0e0ef050-c16a-11e3-97b2-00144feabd... , google search for it (dodges paywall) : https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=facebook+targets+financial+services+site%3Aft.com https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=facebook+targets+financial...
- ama729 12y ago
  > Paying to other European countries isn't great via the banks How so? With SEPA[1] it's both easy (European wide bank account number) and free (might not be the case if both accounts use different currencies though, but in euros it's free). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area
  - mcintyre1994 12y ago
    That was definitely an oversight on my part, sorry. I'm in the UK and while we have free payments to UK banks we don't to Europe. My bank charges £22 and takes 2-4 days to make a payment in Euros to Europe, from GBP. We do have EBANs though. Paypal was much better but SEPA sounds like a much better approach. That just makes me wonder more why they went for Europe first, it seems to be impossible to monetise pretty much anything except cross currency.
philip1209 12y ago
David's post announcing the change: https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140609203227-356899-here-s-to-an-amazing-team-and-to-new-beginnings https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140609203227-3...
bmm6o 12y ago
Maybe I'm being nit-picky, I wish we would stop using "poaching" to refer to the (legal) hiring of a person already employed at another company. Actual poaching is illegal, conversely anti-"poaching" pacts are collusive and illegal.
- xacaxulu 12y ago
  Poaching: Making a significantly more enticing offer to a deserving professional within a free market.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- asdfologist 12y ago
  Source? According to Merriam-Webster, to poach means "to attract (as an employee or customer) away from a competitor". No indication of illegality here.
  - mburns 12y ago
    It's the very next definition of the page you are quoting. Poach (verb) "to trespass for the purpose of stealing game; also : to take game or fish illegally"
    - asdfologist 12y ago
      That's the wrong definition though. Humans are not "game".
      - skj 12y ago
        That's the GGP's point, I think. The word 'poaching' is used because the humans are treated as game, and continuing to use that word continues to bring up that connotation.
  - pmallory 12y ago
gexla 12y ago
Congrats to David Marcus. I'm kind of bummed to see him doing good things with a product I consider a core part of the services I use and then leave to join a product I don't much care for. What's great about Paypal is that it's good for both business and personal. Facebook is horrible for making that separation. I couldn't see myself using Facebook over Paypal. Though most important is the adoption. If it's easy and everyone is using it, then I suppose that could change my mind. Good luck to all involved.
jonathanmarcus 12y ago
Facebook may be generating significant mobile revenue, but the core Facebook mobile / app strategy is suspect. Poke, Home and Paper have all been flops, and it's hard to imagine Slingshot faring any better.
jacquesm 12y ago
How long before Facebook will attack paypal on its home turf? They could do a pretty good job of it too, what with facebook knowing who you are (within reason) and who your friends are they could set this up in such a way that they could side-step the biggest problems with payments through paypal. The tell-tale will be when facebook registers as a bank somewhere. Edit: hello downvoter, feel free to disagree a bit more verbosely.
- rehabindian 12y ago
  Tell tale achieved: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/14/facebook-e-money-transfer-service-europe http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/14/facebook-e...
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    I totally missed that. Thanks!
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
tehwebguy 12y ago
How is it that so many seemingly incredible people come out of PayPal, and PayPal still sucks so much? The all-star list is insane, it keeps growing, and yet PayPal still that can't seem to do anything new.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- Karunamon 12y ago
  They don't need to even do anything new feature-wise; they need CS that doesn't suck goat cheese through a coffee stirrer. If I call in with a problem, give me someone that can both answer my questions and put fingers on the keyboard and fix said problem. Not really that hard. No more indian call centers, no more useless CS, no more hiding need-to-know information behind the all-consuming veil of "fraud protection" (something its competitors don't seem to have that much of an issue with). That's 90% of your problems fixed right there. The other 10% would be the inconsistent enforcement of rules.
  - 001sky 12y ago
    CS is expensive and the margins on micro-transactions is small. Think about the order of magnitude: (1) An average 2.5% transaction fee on a $100 dollar e-bay transaction is US$2.50 in revenue. (2) The cost of sending someone a "paper bill" in the mail (fully amortized) is approximately US$2.00, or 80% of the revenue from a $100 sale. (3) at $8.50/hour, a minimum wage worker would expend >80% of revenue by spending 15 minutes to help you. (4) A "quick fix" with a paper-trail (2+3 above)quickly turns the transaction negative ($2+2=$4>$2.50) at the margin. (5) Since every fix is an instant loss, profit maximization implies "fix minimization"--at least as one component of strategy. (Disclaimer: This is all made up math.)
    - tehwebguy 12y ago
      I assumed your parent was talking about customer service from a vendor perspective, which makes more sense. At a certain volume threshold ($5k / mo? $10k? I forget) the customer service experience absolutely improves, but not enough.
abraxasz 12y ago
Genuine question: The article goes on and on about how making the apps paid in developing countries would make more sense than using ads, etc, etc.. Ok, I see the point. But is it really that different from the developed countries? How much do they get per user in advertisement? How much would it cost me if I wanted to opt out of advertisement? I don't know if people in general prefer ads, but if I had to pay, say $5 a year for a an ad-free whatsapp, I'd gladly pay. Is it ridiculously low compare to what they make with ads?
nonuby 12y ago
It looks like Rakesh Agrawal was right, Paypal really is washed out.
kolev 12y ago
This sounds like a demotion. I personally thought he had a misconduct trying to pump Bitcoin while at the same time fessing up that he owns bitcoins - especially when many perceive Bitcoin as a PayPal competitor.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

62 points by slckfielder08 12y ago

Seems odd, that a big payment service's exec would get poached to head-up a chat service (likely implemented using XMPP). I mean, if FB was serious about chat, wasn't there an exec at a chat-focused company that would have been a better fit? Also, why would the President of PayPal leave (his Top-dog position) to take on a head of a mere department at another company? Also seems odd...

simonk 12y ago
Did you see what his old company did? Payments through mobile phones.
- Alupis 12y ago
  Yes I did... but that is still not a chat business. Twitter, WhatsApp, SnapChat... all their executives would have been more of a natural fit.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - gohrt 12y ago
    You are making a very superficial judgment. If you want to copy WhatApp, there are many options. If you want someone to invent something next-gen...
  - boomzilla 12y ago
    Meaning FB is getting into payment, or some sort of credit transferring via the Messenger app. I am actually surprised it took this long for FB to revive the doomed FB credit service. I mean, by now FB probably has more info about many people than banks and debt collectors.

zaidf 12y ago

This is a huge, huge loss for PayPal.

mcintyre1994 12y ago

It's interesting that according to the FT article mentioned [0] the license is for Europe - and they're talking with UK payments companies. I'm not sure about the rest of Europe, but in the UK I don't imagine a lot of interest - payments are easy by bank transfer. Paying to other European countries isn't great via the banks, I imagine most people use something like Paypal now. But I don't think international payments are likely to be a big part of Facebook realistically. The license is apparently valid throughout Europe though so maybe other countries have poorer bank transfer systems and this would be better. [0] It's paywalled, so techcrunch discussion: http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/facebook-emoney-whatsapp-remittance/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/facebook-emoney-whatsapp-re... , FT article : http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0e0ef050-c16a-11e3-97b2-00144feabdc0.html#axzz34BQwTwv1 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0e0ef050-c16a-11e3-97b2-00144feabd... , google search for it (dodges paywall) : https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=facebook+targets+financial+services+site%3Aft.com https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=facebook+targets+financial...

ama729 12y ago
> Paying to other European countries isn't great via the banks How so? With SEPA[1] it's both easy (European wide bank account number) and free (might not be the case if both accounts use different currencies though, but in euros it's free). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area
- mcintyre1994 12y ago
  That was definitely an oversight on my part, sorry. I'm in the UK and while we have free payments to UK banks we don't to Europe. My bank charges £22 and takes 2-4 days to make a payment in Euros to Europe, from GBP. We do have EBANs though. Paypal was much better but SEPA sounds like a much better approach. That just makes me wonder more why they went for Europe first, it seems to be impossible to monetise pretty much anything except cross currency.

philip1209 12y ago

David's post announcing the change: https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140609203227-356899-here-s-to-an-amazing-team-and-to-new-beginnings https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140609203227-3...

bmm6o 12y ago

Maybe I'm being nit-picky, I wish we would stop using "poaching" to refer to the (legal) hiring of a person already employed at another company. Actual poaching is illegal, conversely anti-"poaching" pacts are collusive and illegal.

xacaxulu 12y ago
Poaching: Making a significantly more enticing offer to a deserving professional within a free market.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
asdfologist 12y ago
Source? According to Merriam-Webster, to poach means "to attract (as an employee or customer) away from a competitor". No indication of illegality here.
- mburns 12y ago
  It's the very next definition of the page you are quoting. Poach (verb) "to trespass for the purpose of stealing game; also : to take game or fish illegally"
  - asdfologist 12y ago
    That's the wrong definition though. Humans are not "game".
    - skj 12y ago
      That's the GGP's point, I think. The word 'poaching' is used because the humans are treated as game, and continuing to use that word continues to bring up that connotation.
- pmallory 12y ago

gexla 12y ago

Congrats to David Marcus. I'm kind of bummed to see him doing good things with a product I consider a core part of the services I use and then leave to join a product I don't much care for. What's great about Paypal is that it's good for both business and personal. Facebook is horrible for making that separation. I couldn't see myself using Facebook over Paypal. Though most important is the adoption. If it's easy and everyone is using it, then I suppose that could change my mind. Good luck to all involved.

jonathanmarcus 12y ago

Facebook may be generating significant mobile revenue, but the core Facebook mobile / app strategy is suspect. Poke, Home and Paper have all been flops, and it's hard to imagine Slingshot faring any better.

jacquesm 12y ago

How long before Facebook will attack paypal on its home turf? They could do a pretty good job of it too, what with facebook knowing who you are (within reason) and who your friends are they could set this up in such a way that they could side-step the biggest problems with payments through paypal. The tell-tale will be when facebook registers as a bank somewhere. Edit: hello downvoter, feel free to disagree a bit more verbosely.

rehabindian 12y ago
Tell tale achieved: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/14/facebook-e-money-transfer-service-europe http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/14/facebook-e...
- jacquesm 12y ago
  I totally missed that. Thanks!
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

tehwebguy 12y ago

How is it that so many seemingly incredible people come out of PayPal, and PayPal still sucks so much? The all-star list is insane, it keeps growing, and yet PayPal still that can't seem to do anything new.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
Karunamon 12y ago
They don't need to even do anything new feature-wise; they need CS that doesn't suck goat cheese through a coffee stirrer. If I call in with a problem, give me someone that can both answer my questions and put fingers on the keyboard and fix said problem. Not really that hard. No more indian call centers, no more useless CS, no more hiding need-to-know information behind the all-consuming veil of "fraud protection" (something its competitors don't seem to have that much of an issue with). That's 90% of your problems fixed right there. The other 10% would be the inconsistent enforcement of rules.
- 001sky 12y ago
  CS is expensive and the margins on micro-transactions is small. Think about the order of magnitude: (1) An average 2.5% transaction fee on a $100 dollar e-bay transaction is US$2.50 in revenue. (2) The cost of sending someone a "paper bill" in the mail (fully amortized) is approximately US$2.00, or 80% of the revenue from a $100 sale. (3) at $8.50/hour, a minimum wage worker would expend >80% of revenue by spending 15 minutes to help you. (4) A "quick fix" with a paper-trail (2+3 above)quickly turns the transaction negative ($2+2=$4>$2.50) at the margin. (5) Since every fix is an instant loss, profit maximization implies "fix minimization"--at least as one component of strategy. (Disclaimer: This is all made up math.)
  - tehwebguy 12y ago
    I assumed your parent was talking about customer service from a vendor perspective, which makes more sense. At a certain volume threshold ($5k / mo? $10k? I forget) the customer service experience absolutely improves, but not enough.

abraxasz 12y ago

Genuine question: The article goes on and on about how making the apps paid in developing countries would make more sense than using ads, etc, etc.. Ok, I see the point. But is it really that different from the developed countries? How much do they get per user in advertisement? How much would it cost me if I wanted to opt out of advertisement? I don't know if people in general prefer ads, but if I had to pay, say $5 a year for a an ad-free whatsapp, I'd gladly pay. Is it ridiculously low compare to what they make with ads?

nonuby 12y ago

It looks like Rakesh Agrawal was right, Paypal really is washed out.

kolev 12y ago

This sounds like a demotion. I personally thought he had a misconduct trying to pump Bitcoin while at the same time fessing up that he owns bitcoins - especially when many perceive Bitcoin as a PayPal competitor.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]