By Reed Albergotti and Greg Bensinger
David Marcus, president of eBay Inc.'s PayPal payments
subsidiary, is leaving to become Facebook Inc.'s vice president of
messaging products.
At Facebook, Mr. Marcus will run Facebook Messenger, a
standalone app as well as a feature in Facebook's desktop platform.
But he won't oversee WhatsApp, the mobile-messaging service
Facebook agreed to buy for $19 billion in February, a Facebook
spokeswoman said.
The high-profile hire is the latest example of Facebook's push
into mobile messaging, an increasingly important part of its plan
to connect the world through its platform.
Facebook Messenger has a fraction of the users that WhatsApp
does. In many countries it trails far behind other popular services
such as Line and WeChat. Facebook said 12 billion messages are sent
through its messenger service every day, and around 200 million
people use the service every month. By contrast, WhatsApp has more
than 500 million monthly users.
In April, Facebook began forcing mobile users to download
Messenger to send and read messages from other users. Facebook
previously had included that function in its main mobile app.
Mr. Marcus and other senior eBay managers spent much of the
early part of the year defending PayPal from activist investor Carl
Icahn, who was pressing eBay to spin off the payments unit. Mr.
Icahn ultimately relented, agreeing to insider status at the
company.
An eBay spokeswoman said Mr. Icahn played no role in Mr.
Marcus's departure.
It isn't clear why Facebook is putting so many resources in its
own messaging service when it paid such a steep price to acquire
another one. Last week, WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton called the
Facebook Messenger "separate but equal" from WhatsApp, but didn't
elaborate.
Facebook founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has said
the apps are used differently. Facebook Messenger is used by people
to stay in touch with friends and relatives, who may not expect an
immediate response. WhatsApp is used for more-instant
communication, as a replacement for text-messaging
conversations.
On Monday, Facebook accidentally released a version of
Slingshot, an app that works in a similar way to the
disappearing-message app Snapchat. According to the company
spokeswoman, Facebook's Creative Labs division is working on the
app and hopes to release it officially soon. The spokeswoman said
Mr. Marcus will have no involvement with Slingshot.
In explaining his jump to Facebook, Mr. Marcus said on his
Facebook page that Mr. Zuckerberg had shared his "compelling
vision" for mobile messaging, which "won me over."
The eBay spokeswoman said Mr. Marcus decided to leave on his
own. She said the move was effective at the end of June, after
which eBay CEO John Donahoe would lead PayPal on an interim basis.
EBay said it would look inside and outside the company for a
successor.
In a statement, Mr. Donahoe said Mr. Marcus had helped with
"reinvigorating product design and innovation" at PayPal.
Mr. Marcus said he felt comfortable leaving PayPal after two
years at the helm because the company was in good shape. "PayPal is
on track to achieve the greatness it deserves in the years to
come," he said.
Write to Reed Albergotti at reed.albergotti@wsj.com and Greg
Bensinger at greg.bensinger@wsj.com
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