Facebook is going through a low phase in the past couple of months. The recent outage that led to all Facebook allied services shutting down is the latest on the list of blows Facebook is dealing with. Now it seems that Facebook has even more issues to deal with, as their top blockchain engineers have left the company for Andreessen Horowitz’s a16z.
Nassim Eddequiouaq and Riyaz Faizullabhoy were the top engineers working with Facebook in their Novi Digital Wallet project. They had worked for over 2 years in the research and development of this digital wallet from Facebook. Now both engineers are a part of Andreessen Horowitz’s team of a16z. Faizullabhoy joined Horowitz’s team as the chief technology officer, and Eddequiouaq will be the chief information security officer.
Faizullabhoy, in an unofficial statement, said that both he and Eddequiouaq were glad to be a part of Horowitz’s premier team of crypto and blockchain experts. a16z has shown tremendous potential in the crypto ecosystem and is on its way to growing even more. Before joining Facebook, these engineers worked with crypto custody firm Anchorage.
Eddequiouaq and Faizullabhoy are not the first or only engineers to drop out of Facebook’s Novi Digital Wallet project. Morgan Beller, head of the Novi strategy team, joined venture capital firm NFX in 2020.
Andreessen Horowitz is among the leading crypto venture firms in the world today. With successful investments in OpenSea, Compound, and Coinbase, the firm has made a name for itself. The inclusion of fresh talent is expected to bring more success to the firm.
