By Jeff Horwitz and Georgia Wells
A senior Facebook Inc. executive viewed as a potential successor
to Mark Zuckerberg abruptly stepped down Thursday, signaling that
he disagrees with the CEO's new focus on private messaging at the
social-networking giant.
Chris Cox, one of Facebook's early engineers and a close friend
of Mr. Zuckerberg, said he decided to leave the company to enable
new leadership to pull off the shift in direction. Ten months ago,
Mr. Cox was promoted to oversee the company's three main platforms:
Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
WhatsApp unit head Chris Daniels also stepped down on
Thursday.
The moves together show that Mr. Zuckerberg's stated plan to
focus more on private messaging -- and less on public sharing -- is
roiling the company he founded, including a second management
shuffle in less than a year.
While Mr. Cox, 36 years old, didn't explicitly state a reason
for his departure, he said Facebook's pivot would benefit from
different leadership. In a previous role, Mr. Cox oversaw the
Facebook News Feed, which will be less prominent under the new
structure Mr. Zuckerberg is planning.
"This will be a big project and we will need leaders who are
excited to see the new direction through," Mr. Cox wrote in a
statement. He thanked Mr. Zuckerberg for "creating this place, and
for the chance to work beside a dear friend for over thirteen
years."
A week ago, Mr. Zuckerberg said Facebook plans to offer
encrypted messaging across all its major products and allow people
to make conversations ephemeral. That would boost privacy and
enable conversations held more like in a living room, rather than
the public square, and also allow the company to offer more
services such as payments and e-commerce within those messaging
services.
Doing so, however, requires the company to perfect new ways of
making money besides the advertising machine that currently
generates 98% of its revenue and pursue other priorities besides
driving growth to the existing platforms.
While the outlines are clear, Facebook has offered few details
and company officials have acknowledged significant open questions
about what the shared messaging platform and business model would
look like. Personnel changes announced Thursday indicate Mr.
Zuckerberg is putting in place a management team that is fully on
board with the new direction.
"While it is sad to lose such great people, this also creates
opportunities for more great leaders who are energized about the
path ahead to take on new and bigger roles,' Mr. Zuckerberg said in
the Facebook post announcing the moves.
In the wake of Mr. Cox's departure, Fidji Simo has been promoted
to oversee the Facebook app, and Will Cathcart will replace Mr.
Daniels as the head of WhatsApp. Those executives and current
Instagram chief Adam Mosseri will report to Mr. Zuckerberg
directly, while the company's chief marketing officer, Antonio
Lucio, will report to Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg. Mr.
Zuckerberg also said Javier Olivan would oversee integrating
messaging and direct "where our apps should be more
integrated."
"Whenever there is a shift in strategy, it's not unusual to see
some personnel changes," said eMarketer senior analyst Jasmine
Enberg. "What we do know is that Zuckerberg has a new vision for
Facebook that will be more focused on private communication. That's
a big shift for the company, which was built around public
sharing."
Facebook's leadership was unusually stable for most of the first
dozen years or so following its launch from Mr. Zuckerberg's
Harvard dorm in 2004. Over the past 18 months or so, though, the
company has been buffeted by a number of management changes that
have one common denominator: a disagreement with Mr. Zuckerberg
over strategic changes.
The founders of WhatsApp and Instagram, Facebook's hugely
successful acquisitions, left the company during 2017 and 2018.
WhatsApp's Brian Acton and Jan Koum disagreed with Mr. Zuckerberg's
plans to monetize the messaging service, while Instagram's Kevin
Systrom and Mike Krieger grew frustrated over a number of changes
Mr. Zuckerberg was pushing on the photo-sharing app, which had
previously enjoyed considerable autonomy.
Mr. Cox, having enjoyed such a long and personal history with
Mr. Zuckerberg, was viewed as stable lieutenant.
"Chris Cox leaving is depressing" said BTIG Research analyst
Rich Greenfield, adding that "Chris has made it easier for himself
to leave by building the teams he has over the years."
Prior to Mr. Cox's promotion last year, he oversaw the core
Facebook product, where growth has begun to slow. Though still
producing the overwhelming majority of the company's revenue, the
platform has approached saturation in some markets and seen user
activity plateau or decline in others.
Mr. Zuckerberg obliquely referenced social-media users' changing
preferences in announcing the company's pivot to messaging last
week. While user-activity metrics are closely held by the company,
a series of independent research firms suggest the share of
Facebook users who regularly post status updates and photos has
been falling, while the numbers who are chatting one-to-one or in
small groups is on the rise.
Mr. Daniels's departure, while less high-profile, is also
notable. As head of WhatsApp, he oversaw the hugely popular
messaging service that many regarded as a template for what Mr.
Zuckerberg hopes to create across the company. Mr. Daniels joined
Facebook in 2011 after stints at Microsoft Corp. and Lehman
Brothers, and before his WhatsApp assignment he ran Internet.org,
the company's effort to push a free, Facebook-flavored product
around the globe.
Mr. Daniels wasn't available for comment.
Write to Georgia Wells at Georgia.Wells@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 14, 2019 19:29 ET (23:29 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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