Facebook exec calls WhatsApp co-founder ‘low-class’

In a turn of events, Facebook’s head of block chain David Marcus has bashed WhatsApp’s co-founder for being ‘low-class’ after he spoke ill of his experience at the parent company. 

The ex-head of Facebook’s Messenger recently published a blog post where he defended the company and CEO Mark Zuckerberg against a statement made by WhatsApp co-founder Brian Actonm, who spoke critically of his experience with Facebook.

In an interview with Forbes, Acton said that Zuckerberg was in a rush to make money via the messaging service and undermine elements of its encryption technology. Marcus, however, came to defend the company and clarified that he did not write the post at Facebook’s request, but is giving his personal views. He said that Acton’s statements ‘differ greatly from the reality I witnessed first-hand’ and ‘felt compelled to write about the actual facts’.

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“There are few companies out there that empower and retain founders and their teams for as long as Facebook does. For some of them, Facebook is the place they did their best work, and had the most impact in the world,” wrote Marcus, who joined Facebook back in 2014.

Acton sold WhatsApp to Facebook for $22 billion in 2014 before leaving it a year ago. Marcus said that after the purchase, Zuckerberg gave the team an office with a different layout and more personal space despite the fact that it at times came at a cost to the company and ‘irritated people at Facebook’. He claimed that Zuckerberg completely supported the end-to-end encryption on WhatsApp too after acquisition, as CNBC wrote.

Marcus accused Acton of deliberately working to slow down certain business objectives whilst at the company, as per Business Insider.

Acton even told Forbes that he sold his users’ privacy ‘to a larger benefit’. “I made a choice and a compromise. And I live with that every day.” Marcus said that Zuckerberg ‘protected WhatsApp for a very long period of time’ including on the advertising side and for business messaging.

He concluded by saying, “Lastly – call me old fashioned. But I find attacking the people and company that made you a billionaire, and went to an unprecedented extent to shield and accommodate you for years, low-class. It’s actually a whole new standard of low-class.”

“Facebook is truly the only company that’s singularly about people. Not about selling devices. Not about delivering goods with less friction. Not about entertaining you. Not about helping you find information. Just about people.”

The interview with Acton comes just days after Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger too stepped down from the company, six years after Facebook acquired it.