WhatsApp Chief Business Officer Neeraj Arora quit on Monday, making him the latest high profile executive to leave the instant messaging company. Arora said in his official statement that he is leaving the Facebook owned company for “taking some time off to recharge and spend some time with his family.”
Arora’s exit comes almost a year after WhatsApp’s co-founders – Brian Acton and Jan Koum – left the company. Arora was one of the oldest employees and critical part of the instant messaging company. He supposedly played an important role in paving the way for Facebook’s $19 bn acquisition of WhatsApp in 2014.
Interestingly, Arora was considered as one of the frontrunners to replace Koum as a CEO. Now with Arora having gone, the parent company Facebook is likely to face tough times to find a suitable candidate for the high profile post.
However, Facebook has far bigger problem to deal with following Arora’s untimely resignation. This is because Arora’s resignation could not have come at a worse time for the Social media giant. Mentioned below in pointers are some of the key reasons explaining why Arora’s resignation leaves Facebook and WhatsApp pretty much in a dock.
- Facebook’s founder & Chairman Mark Zuckerberg is himself feeling the pressure from investors to resign. Although Zuckerberg last week made it clear that he is not going anywhere, this helps little in repairing the damage done to the company in the wake of series of scandals (Cambridge Analytica) and privacy allegations.
- Things are not that hunky dory in Facebook’s another high-profile subsidiary company – Instagram either. Instagram’s both co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger resigned earlier this year. Their increasingly strained relationship with Zuckerberg and their concerns with the privacy issues are reported to have led to their shocking resignation. Their resignation by the way happens to be one of the biggest stories of 2018.
- Arora’s resignation comes at a time when WhatsApp is not only facing privacy issues but is also facing flaks for its inability to stop fake news. In India (one of the critical markets for WhatsApp), the instant messaging company is struggling to assure the Indian government about its ability to control the fake news menace.
These reasons are suffice to suggest that Zuckerberg and his social media company are going through one of its toughest phase. To put it more bluntly, things in Facebook Inc. are little bit in mess (if not in complete mess). Guess, it is time for Zuckerberg to show some leadership skills to put things in order in the world’s most beloved social media company.
It certainly won’t be an easy task for him, but this certainly seems to be need of the hour.