Morgan Beller, credited as one of the co-creators of Facebook’s Libra digital currency, recently left her position as head of strategy at Novi, Facebook’s digital wallet initiative. She’s becoming a general partner with the San Francisco-based venture firm NFX. The 27-year old graduate is turning her focus to find and help “cultivate seed-stage startups that aim to grow so-called network effects businesses,” TechCrunch reported yesterday. Beller was previously with Andreessen Horowitz and Medium before joining Facebook.
A CNBC article published shortly after Libra’s unveiling last year said that Beller was the initial instigator of Facebook’s push into blockchain and cryptocurrency, and she started exploring the topic shortly after joining the company in 2017. Apparently, her strategic push pre-dated the involvement of David Marcus, who heads Novi and sits on the board of Libra.
“Morgan was really the first one, at least to my understanding,” Silicon Valley technologist Howard Wu told CNBC. “She’s done a fantastic job of getting other people in the cryptocurrency communities to get on board with Libra.”
Some have questioned how genuine Libra’s financial inclusion goals are, and again Wu attributed this push to Beller.
The executive is leaving Novi, the Facebook wallet subsidiary formerly known as Calibra, as opposed to Libra, which is a separate entity where Novi is just one member. But the Libra project also suffered a recent loss when its General Counsel, Robert Werner, departed after just three months.
Beller’s decision to move on is driven by her interest in projects that are on the zero-to-one phase, and “with investing, it’s zero-to-one all day”. One could say with Libra it’s more like dodgems.
