David A. Marcus

David Marcus (born April 12, 1973) is an American entrepreneur. He is the co-creator and a board member of Libra, a cryptocurrency project initiated by Facebook. He is the former president of PayPal and Vice President of Messaging Products at Facebook where he ran the Facebook Messenger unit from 2014 until 2018. In December 2017, Marcus was appointed to the Coinbase Board of Directors, from which he stepped down in 2018.

David Marcus
Born
David A. Marcus

(1973-04-12) April 12, 1973
Paris, France
OccupationCo-creator of Libra at Facebook
Years active1996–present
WebsiteDavid Marcus

Early life and education

Marcus was born on April 12, 1973[1] in Paris, France to a Romanian father and Iranian mother.[2] He grew up in Geneva, Switzerland.[3] At the age of 8, he learned basic computer coding.[4] Marcus attended the University of Geneva for one year before dropping out initially to support his family by working at a bank[5] and later to pursue an entrepreneurial career.[3]

Career

Marcus started his career in 1996 at age 23 when he founded his first venture, GTN Telecom, a Geneva-based provider of internet access and local- and long-distance calling.[4][6] He served as the Chairman and CEO of that company until it was acquired by World Access in 2000.[7] Soon after, Marcus founded Echovox, a mobile media monetization company. In 2008,[8] he founded Zong, an offshoot of Echovox that allowed users to pay for items online directly through their mobile phone bills.[6][7]

Zong was acquired by eBay's PayPal in August 2011 for $240 million, and Marcus joined PayPal as Vice President and General Manager of the company's Mobile Division.[1] Under his leadership, PayPal launched its offline mobile card reader solution, PayPal Here.[7] In April 2012 he was selected to replace Scott Thompson as President of PayPal after Thompson went to Yahoo.[9] In September 2013, Marcus oversaw PayPal's $800-million acquisition of Braintree (the parent company of Venmo).[10][11]

In June 2014, Marcus stepped down as President of PayPal to join Facebook as its Vice President of Messaging Products. In this role, he would largely go on to oversee the development of the Facebook Messenger mobile app.[12][13] The app reached 1 billion active users in July 2016.[14] Marcus is credited with the introduction of Messenger's P2P payment platform which was released in the United States in June 2015.[15] Marcus would later help implement business payments on the platform.[16][17]

In December 2017, Marcus was appointed to the Board of Directors of the cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase. According to the announcement, he was chosen based on his experience with digital payments at both PayPal and Facebook and his knowledge of cryptocurrency.[13] He is also considered an early promoter of cryptocurrency.[18]

On May 8, 2018, Marcus revealed that he is stepping down from his current role to lead the experimental blockchain group at Facebook.[19]

References
  1. Barr, Alistair (March 29, 2012). "EBay taps tech entrepreneur to lead PayPal". Reuters. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  2. Melinda Davan-Soulas (February 21, 2018). "De PayPal à Facebook Messenger, portrait du Français David Marcus". La Chaîne Info (in French). Retrieved 16 March 2018.
  3. Gallindoss, Alan (June 10, 2014). "David Marcus Quits as President of PayPal Joins Facebook Instead". Jewish Business News. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  4. Kuchler, Hannah (October 25, 2015). "David Marcus, Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg's chief messenger". Financial Times. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  5. Giammatteo, Giacomo (October 11, 2016). Uneducated: 37 People Who Redefined the Definition of 'Education'. Inferno Publishing Company.
  6. Hempel, Jesse (November 10, 2014). "Why Facebook Has Entrusted Its Future to the CEO of PayPal". Wired. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  7. Rao, Leena (March 29, 2012). "Former Zong CEO And Founder And Mobile VP David Marcus Named President Of eBay's PayPal". TechCrunch. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  8. Segall, Laurie (March 29, 2012). "PayPal taps mobile chief as its new leader". CNN. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  9. Duryee, Tricia (March 29, 2012). "eBay Promotes David Marcus to Fill Top Vacancy at PayPal". All Things Digital. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  10. Elahi, Amina (May 15, 2014). "Braintree keeps its culture, despite PayPal buy". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  11. Lunden, Ingrid (September 26, 2013). "PayPal's David Marcus: Braintree Keeps Its Brand And Ops Intact; Venmo Will Be Used For Big P2P Push". TechCrunch. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  12. D'Onfro, Jillian (June 9, 2014). "PayPal President David Marcus Is Stepping Down To Join Facebook". Business Insider. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  13. Hatmaker, Taylor (December 12, 2017). "Facebook Messaging VP David Marcus joins Coinbase board". TechCrunch. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  14. Guynn, Jessica (July 20, 2016). "Facebook Messenger tops 1 billion users". USA Today. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  15. Garun, Natt (June 30, 2015). "Facebook Messenger payments are now available to everyone in the US". The Next Web. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  16. Rowan, David (October 12, 2015). "Facebook Messenger: inside Zuckerberg's app for everything". Wired. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  17. Constine, Josh; Perez, Sarah (September 12, 2016). "Facebook Messenger now allows payments in its 30,000 chat bots". TechCrunch. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  18. Fernholz, Tim (15 May 2015). "Five takeaways from "Digital Gold," Nathaniel Popper's new book about bitcoin". Quartz.
  19. "The head of Facebook Messenger is now in charge of bringing blockchain to Facebook". Business Insider. Retrieved 2018-05-09.
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