Close confidant of Zuckerberg leaves Facebook
No sooner had Mark Zuckerberg announced a new strategy for Facebook than one of his closest confidants stepped down. A coincidence? It doesn't look like it.
One of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's closest confidants is leaving the online network a few days after the announcement of a far-reaching change in strategy. In his 13 years at Facebook, Chris Cox had helped design the newsfeed, among other things, through which most users receive their information on the network. Another top manager is also leaving: Chris Daniels, who took over the management of chat service WhatsApp less than a year ago following the departure of its founders.
Last week, Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would focus more on communication in encrypted chat services and therefore also on stricter privacy protection. The U-turn raises many questions - including about Facebook's future business model. After all, the online network currently generates its billions in profits mainly from ads in the newsfeed.
Zuckerberg did his best not to make it look like a rift. "For several years, Chris has talked to me about his desire to do something different," the Facebook boss wrote in a blog post late on Thursday. "But after 2016" - an allusion to the criticism of Facebook's role in the US presidential election - they both decided that there was still too much to improve at the online network. However, progress has since been made. "I will miss Chris very much." The two men are also considered friends in their private lives.
Cox himself did not write in his farewell note that he would like to do something else - but that it was "with great sadness" that he announced he was leaving Facebook after 13 years. He also hinted that he was not the right person for the announced change in strategy: "This will be a big project and we will need leaders who are enthusiastic about implementing the new direction." The website Buzzfeed reported, citing an informed source, that differences over the future product direction had led to the departure.
The news did not go down well with investors: The shares lost around three percent at times in early US trading on Friday.
The 36-year-old Cox was little known to the public in his role as head of product, but was considered number three in the Facebook pecking order after Zuckerberg and CEO Sheryl Sandberg. Last year, Zuckerberg handed him overall supervision of all of the Group's apps: The central Facebook application as well as Instagram and the chat services WhatsApp and Messenger. Cox was therefore already considered the crown prince by some industry observers. His previous position will not be filled for the time being. Instead, the heads of the individual apps will report directly to Zuckerberg in future.
The new head of WhatsApp will be Will Cathcart, who was most recently responsible for the Facebook app. The founders Brian Acton and Jan Koum left the chat service, which was acquired for around 22 billion dollars, in 2017 and 2018. According to media reports, they had opposed a softening of encryption in the app at the time, which Facebook had been working towards.
On the contrary, according to Zuckerberg's new plan, more Facebook services such as WhatsApp will be fully encrypted. However, Daniels did not agree with some of the decisions in Zuckerberg's plan to merge the technical infrastructure behind WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram's chat function, wrote the New York Times. He had already submitted his resignation a few weeks ago.
Cox was "one of a group of people who meant well but made decisions in 2009 that are no longer applicable in 2019," said a former Facebook employee Buzzfeed. The departure of the Zuckerberg confidant shows that the Facebook boss is also prepared to accept the loss of important companions for the realignment, explained the well-known venture investor Ben Horowitz on Twitter. (SDA)
