Facebook acquires Chainspace and is strategically heading towards Blockchain
The first sign that something big was moving at Facebook took place in April 2018 when, suddenly, Jan Koum, co-founder of WhatsApp, resigned from his post on the company’s Board of Directors.
Mark Zuckerberg was the first to comment on Koum’s announcement on social media: he thanked Koum for everything he had “taught him, including cryptography and his ability to take power from centralized systems and put it back into people’s hands.” “ Wow! “, one could say, in the aftermath of the various Cambridge Analytic scandals involving Menlo Park’s giant.
A couple of questions arise, however. Spontaneously:
1- Why has Facebook been deprived, as well as a capable innovator, even of an expert cryptographer like Koum?
Brian Acton, co-founder of WhatsApp, had also left the company before him. Later, both the founders of Instagram and some key executives in important business sectors such as Elliot Schrage (former Head of Communications and Public Policy), Colin Stretch (former Facebook top-lawyer) and Alex Stamos (former Chief Security Officer), also did so.
The reason is to be found in the clash between the approach of Koum and Acton, very focused on the defense of user and network privacy as well as on the cryptography of data and, on the other, the need to improve the ROI of the substantial investment by of the Californian corporate.
2- Also, why was David Marcus sitting in Koum’s place on the Board of Directors?
Previously, Marcus was head of Messenger and VP, President and CEO of PayPal. Commenting on his new position in the new organization chart, the new board member, in a post, defined his mission: “I’m creating a small working group to explore how to best implement the blockchain in Facebook, starting from zero.”
So here is to emerge the strategy of Facebook: increasing the revenues of WhatsApp by introducing marketing functionality and a payment system through a (new?) Cryptocurrency; at the same time, Zuckerberg will try to extend the lifecycle of its services through initial “hybrid” solutions and then look for new revenue streams using the Blockchain and becoming, with both financial and human capital acquired, the new Dominus in the market.
His tactic is therefore clear: to provide itself with a streamlined structure to support the “heads” of Chainspace to bring social media and its technologies (both current and future ones) on the Blockchain.
In the end, the question of the questions is: how will Zuckerberg migrate (?) its technologies onto blockchain claiming to “take power from centralized systems and put it back into the hands of people” and, at the same, time achieve the defined growth objectives?
UPDATE, Dec. 8th 2021
Talent exodus continues @ facebook
Facebook Workplace executive departing to join venture capital firm as talent exodus continues.
