How is it that so many seemingly incredible people come out of PayPal, and PayPal still sucks so much?<p>The all-star list is insane, it keeps growing, and yet PayPal still that can't seem to do anything new.
Maybe I'm being nit-picky, I wish we would stop using "poaching" to refer to the (legal) hiring of a person already employed at another company. Actual poaching is illegal, conversely anti-"poaching" pacts are collusive and illegal.
It's interesting that according to the FT article mentioned [0] the license is for Europe - and they're talking with UK payments companies. I'm not sure about the rest of Europe, but in the UK I don't imagine a lot of interest - payments are easy by bank transfer. Paying to other European countries isn't great via the banks, I imagine most people use something like Paypal now. But I don't think international payments are likely to be a big part of Facebook realistically.<p>The license is apparently valid throughout Europe though so maybe other countries have poorer bank transfer systems and this would be better.<p>[0] It's paywalled, so techcrunch discussion: <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/facebook-emoney-whatsapp-remittance/" rel="nofollow">http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/facebook-emoney-whatsapp-re...</a> , FT article : <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0e0ef050-c16a-11e3-97b2-00144feabdc0.html#axzz34BQwTwv1" rel="nofollow">http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0e0ef050-c16a-11e3-97b2-00144feabd...</a> , google search for it (dodges paywall) : <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=facebook+targets+financial+services+site%3Aft.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=facebook+targets+financial...</a>
David's post announcing the change:<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140609203227-356899-here-s-to-an-amazing-team-and-to-new-beginnings" rel="nofollow">https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140609203227-3...</a>
Genuine question: The article goes on and on about how making the apps paid in developing countries would make more sense than using ads, etc, etc.. Ok, I see the point. But is it really that different from the developed countries? How much do they get per user in advertisement? How much would it cost me if I wanted to opt out of advertisement? I don't know if people in general prefer ads, but if I had to pay, say $5 a year for a an ad-free whatsapp, I'd gladly pay. Is it ridiculously low compare to what they make with ads?
Congrats to David Marcus.<p>I'm kind of bummed to see him doing good things with a product I consider a core part of the services I use and then leave to join a product I don't much care for.<p>What's great about Paypal is that it's good for both business and personal. Facebook is horrible for making that separation. I couldn't see myself using Facebook over Paypal. Though most important is the adoption. If it's easy and everyone is using it, then I suppose that could change my mind.<p>Good luck to all involved.
Seems odd, that a big payment service's exec would get poached to head-up a chat service (likely implemented using XMPP).<p>I mean, if FB was serious about chat, wasn't there an exec at a chat-focused company that would have been a better fit?<p>Also, why would the President of PayPal leave (his Top-dog position) to take on a head of a mere department at another company? Also seems odd...
Facebook may be generating significant mobile revenue, but the core Facebook mobile / app strategy is suspect. Poke, Home and Paper have all been flops, and it's hard to imagine Slingshot faring any better.
This sounds like a demotion. I personally thought he had a misconduct trying to pump Bitcoin while at the same time fessing up that he owns bitcoins - especially when many perceive Bitcoin as a PayPal competitor.
How long before Facebook will attack paypal on its home turf?<p>They could do a pretty good job of it too, what with facebook knowing who you are (within reason) and who your friends are they could set this up in such a way that they could side-step the biggest problems with payments through paypal.<p>The tell-tale will be when facebook registers as a bank somewhere.<p>Edit: hello downvoter, feel free to disagree a bit more verbosely.