As the dust settles from Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica crisis, the company is putting in motion a reorg that impacts its product and engineering teams and is reassigning a number of current executives to new leadership roles.
Per internal communications sent to Facebook employees, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has divided the company’s product and engineering teams into three divisions, according to a report from Recode. The three new divisions will include a Family of Apps team, a New Platforms and Infra team and a Central Product Services team.
The Family of Apps team will be run by Facebook Chief Product Officer Chris Cox, who will oversee WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram and Facebook’s core app. Will Cathcart is now overseeing Facebook’s core app, and Chris Daniels, the former VP of Facebook’s Internet.org, will head up WhatsApp. (WhatsApp’s former CEO, Jan Koum, announced his resignation last week.) Also, Adam Mosseri, who formerly oversaw Facebook’s News Feed, is moving to the Instagram team as its VP of product. Stan Chudnovsky, who was head of product for Messenger under David Marcus, will now lead the Messenger app team.
David Marcus is leaving Facebook Messenger to head up the company’s new blockchain technology team. Kevin Weil, Instagram’s former VP of product, will also be joining the blockchain technology team. The blockchain team and Facebook’s VR and AR teams (run by Andrew Bosworth) are now part of the New Platforms and Infra team, which will be led by Facebook Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer.
The Central Product Services group will include all of the other product and engineering functions, including ads, security and growth and will be led by Facebook VP of Growth Javi Olivan.
Facebook declined to comment on the reorg but did confirm that the Recode story was accurate.
Whether or not these changes are connected to Facebook’s data privacy issues is unknown. During an April 4 press briefing, three days prior to his first Congressional hearing, Zuckerberg was asked if Facebook’s board had discussed removing him from his role as chairman. The CEO responded, “Not that I’m aware.” He also made it clear that no one at Facebook had been fired in connection with the Cambridge Analytica situation.
Two top-ranking Facebook executives have announced their resignations during the past two months: Jan Koum, the CEO of WhatsApp, who resigned last week, and Facebook Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos, who is reportedly leaving in August. Both are rumored to have conflicts with Facebook’s data security policies.
While the latest Facebook crisis may have dominated headlines, the company’s bottom line has not taken a hit, and its usage numbers have not reflected any significant decline. Two weeks ago, Facebook reported $12 billion in Q1 revenue, beating Wall Street’s expectations. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll of 2,000 social media users conducted at the end of April revealed 74 percent of the people surveyed still use Facebook daily, with only 1 percent of survey participants claiming they had deleted their Facebook accounts.
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