Digital payment startup Diem creator David Marcus leaves Meta

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Digital payment startup Diem creator David Marcus leaves Meta

David Marcus, one of the top executives at Meta Platforms Inc. and co-creator of the yet-to- be-launched Diem digital currency, is leaving the company after seven years to pursue other projects.

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Marcus, who joined the Facebook parent company in 2014 from PayPal Holdings Inc., ran the Messenger service for years before moving over to form the company s blockchain division in 2018. He has spent the last few years building Novi, the company's digital wallet that launched in October, and co-founded Diem, a digital currency formerly known as Libra, intended to be a way for people to send money cross-border.

It's been a struggle for Meta and Marcus to get Diem off the ground. Since the project was unveiled in 2019, with great fanfare and dozens of partners, the currency's debut has been delayed and its original ambitions have been scaled back. When it was announced, Diem faced a lot of pushback from lawmakers and regulators, and Diem is now run independently.

Marcus's departure adds more uncertainty to Meta's digital payment push, but the longtime entrepreneur and angel investor says he has an itch to create something outside the company.

While there is still so much to do on the heels of the launch of Novi, and I remain as passionate as ever about the need for change in our payments and financial systems, my entrepreneurial DNA has been nudging me for too many mornings in a row to ignore it, according to a blog post he plans to publish Tuesday.

Marcus, 48, plans to leave the company at the end of the year. Stephane Kasriel, the former chief executive officer of Upwork Inc. who joined Meta in August 2020, will take over Marcus's role as head of Novi and other payments projects.

Marcus was a trusted lieutenant of CEO Mark Zuckerberg and was involved in a number of major projects at Meta during his tenure. In 2014 he took over Messenger when the company spun the service out of the main Facebook service into a stand-alone app, angering users but giving Messenger more room to build features like bots and video calling.

Marcus is best remembered for Diem. The effort was opposed by regulators worried about Meta's role in financial markets. The project is in limbo, with scrutiny on Meta only growing this year.

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