Why a Meta Exec Quit for Web3 and Is Staying Through the Crypto Winter

• Ex-Meta marketing exec Jennifer Kattula quit after 11 years to “take the leap” into Web3. 
• She first joined the now-bankrupt crypto firm Celsius but quickly moved to infrastructure startup Polygon. 
• Kattula says sticking around through a bear market is a valuable career experience.

After 11 years as a marketing executive at Meta, Jennifer Kattula received a call in 2021 from a former colleague about joining cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius.

The call piqued her interest and she began to research crypto and Web3 — both still nascent industries. She became a convert.

“I did a tonne of deep-dive research and in that journey, in that exploration, what I realized was this technology is going to change the world,” Kattula told Insider.

Web3 is touted by venture capitalists and some technologists as the next big thing in tech. It is an umbrella term for a theoretical next version of the internet which would run on the blockchain, decentralized technologies, and cryptocurrencies. Its core promise is taking power from corporations and giving it to users, but it’s early days and numerous Web3 projects have failed.

Still, Kattala took the leap.

In December 2021, she quit her role as a senior director, global head of platforms marketing at Meta, to become vice president of marketing at Celsius.

Celsius, a crypto lender that promised higher interest rates than traditional banks, had hit a valuation of $3.25 billion by the time she joined. Interest in Web3 and crypto was peaking, with bullish investors pouring a record $30 billion into crypto ventures that year.

And at the time, Silicon Valley tech execs were quitting prestigious, well-paid roles for these riskier ventures. Another former colleague, former head of Meta’s digital crypto wallet Novi, Sherice Torres, also left for crypto startup Circle at the beginning of this year, telling Insider that “everyone will follow.”

“I’m not gonna lie, I was very nervous because it is secure and I have two kids,” Kattula said. “In my life stage, security means something, but I was there for 11-and-a-half years, so at some point, the pace of learning slows down.”

Kattula completed an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering at the University of Michigan and an MBA in general marketing and management before going on to become a group product manager at Microsoft.

She said she’s “always loved technology,” because of her engineering background but was drawn to a career in marketing, joining Meta’s marketing division in 2010 and embarking on an 11-year career at the firm. 

The move to Celsius, she said, surprised family and friends who thought she would “be at Facebook forever,” but it was also a fresh challenge to try and explain the legitimacy of crypto.

But Kattula’s first foray into crypto did not go smoothly, and she left Celsius after less than six months in April 2022. 

Shortly after her exit, Terra USD — a type of cryptocurrency intended to be pegged to the dollar — and its sister token Luna collapsed in May, ushering in a new “crypto winter.”

Citing “extreme market conditions”, Celsius froze customer accounts in June, preventing users from withdrawing or transferring money. In July, the firm filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with a reported $2 billion hole in its balance sheet. Its crash appeared emblematic of the problems with crypto and Web3 — that a promise of power to the users didn’t seem to come with much protection. One US state financial regulator alleged that the company effectively looked like a Ponzi scheme.

“I left long before their bankruptcy,” Kattula said. “I joined that company and realized I am so much more interested in blockchain technology than I am in crypto, and that was the reason I left. It was not the right fit. I realized I love Web3, but I really want to work at a company that’s more focused on technology.”

Kattula stayed in the industry, becoming senior vice president of marketing at Polygon, which bills itself as a technical solution to the problem of scaling on the Ethereum blockchain rather than operating like a financial institution like Celsius. Polygon operates a side chain to Ethereum, with the stated goal of allowing developers to build decentralized apps more quickly and with lower transaction fees. It raised $450 million in funding in February, in a round led by Sequoia Capital India and backed by the likes of Tiger Global and Softbank. 

After meeting with Polygon’s cofounder Sandeep Nailwal and CEO Ryan Wyatt, Kattula was sold.

Despite a bear market and apparently cooling interest in Web3, Nailwal has said he’s still “mega-mega bullish” about the industry. Kattula is likewise optimistic and says the risk is worth it to get “experience in a bear market, which I think thickens your skin a little bit.” 

She added that her crypto experience reminded her of “the early days of Facebook” and said the industry was at the “infancy of what’s possible.”

Although shifting into Web3 has a different “risk profile perspective,” for each person, Kattula advises people to take on new experiences. 

“I believe to my core that this is where the world is going, because of the potential here. That’s what keeps me going, even though there’s a risk, even though there are companies that may not make it, I still get really excited about it.”