Earlier quoted context omitted.
because their product was and is the best.
How on earth is it better than Facebook Messenger?
I don't need a Facebook account to use it.
Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users
201–210 of 255 posts
Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users
#202Basically they're a silicon valley company who've done everything that's exactly the opposite of standard silicon valley advise -- bootstrapped for first few years, complete apathy or even aversion to silicon valley marketing (if you live in the valley and have no foreign connection, you probably didn't even know what whatsapp was before 2012 or so), built for all client platforms simultaneously (including blackberry and Nokia), focus on non-US markets first, built out on leased hardware instead of public cloud, a simple pay-for-use business model selling to consumers (before facebook bought them), deep aversion to ads (http://blog.whatsapp.com/245/Why-we-dont-sell-ads?) etc. The fact that their technology stack ended up being Erlang on FreeBSD is probably the least distinguishing feature about them.
Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users
#203Basically they're a silicon valley company who've done everything that's exactly the opposite of standard silicon valley advise -- bootstrapped for first few years, complete apathy or even aversion to silicon valley marketing (if you live in the valley and have no foreign connection, you probably didn't even know what whatsapp was before 2012 or so), built for all client platforms simultaneously (including blackberry…
> bootstrapped for first few years
I recall whatsapp being free before it was for pay, how was it bootstrapped?
Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't the fact that they've actually done it with so few people fairly concrete evidence that it's not incredibly complex?
That's not evidence that's speculation. They could be using really good tools. Or each of those 50 programmers are 10x more productive than regular programmer (I don't believe in this imo).
The evidence in this case is the fact that they built the company and product with 50 developers.
Whether that evidence implies anything about the product's complexity is the speculative part.
If the explanation is that every single programmer at WhatsApp is 10x more productive than programmers at similar top companies, then my first question is how did WhatsApp manage to hire such people but Google, Facebook, etc., did not?
Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users
#205For reference, Level Money sold to C1 and had 1 backend engineer, 1 android engineer, and 1 ios engineer. This scale isn't unusual at all. Really it's a lot more about feature development. The smart way to build most mobile startups is to use managed providers like google app engine, AWS Container Service, or Heroku. Between that and how not-bad both Android and iOS are to develop for these days (compared to their hi…
>This scale isn't unusual at all
How many apps are used by 13% of the world population every month?
Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users
#206Basically they're a silicon valley company who've done everything that's exactly the opposite of standard silicon valley advise -- bootstrapped for first few years, complete apathy or even aversion to silicon valley marketing (if you live in the valley and have no foreign connection, you probably didn't even know what whatsapp was before 2012 or so), built for all client platforms simultaneously (including blackberry…
> bootstrapped for first few years I recall whatsapp being free before it was for pay, how was it bootstrapped?
they didn't take venture capital and instead self funded. even if you aren't generating revenue, you can bootstrap
Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users
#207Basically they're a silicon valley company who've done everything that's exactly the opposite of standard silicon valley advise -- bootstrapped for first few years, complete apathy or even aversion to silicon valley marketing (if you live in the valley and have no foreign connection, you probably didn't even know what whatsapp was before 2012 or so), built for all client platforms simultaneously (including blackberry…
I interviewed with them recently. They claimed their success was due to picking up Erlang.
Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because you can reach your friends and loved ones with WA. It is quite simple. You can make a better IM with fewer people, when you don't have bloat like stickers market and celebrity chats. And don't try to push people to buy those stickers in every possible menu. (Hi Viber).
WA? I'm not familiar with that acronym.
Err, WhatsApp?
Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users
#209Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
We do have an initial hour meeting with candidates just to get to know them and propose the trial if they seem like a possibility. Wouldn't most people take a day off to interview somewhere? I know I wouldn't be comfortable ducking out for a few hours to interview — it would feel tense and uncomfortable. Facebook, and I'm sure many other places, do full-day interviews. It's certainly not unusual.
> Wouldn't most people take a day off to interview somewhere? Not always possible. One of the big annoyances when I was working for a company was that if I wanted time off it was two weeks notice. Doesn't work particularly well when the interview invitation tends to be more along the lines of, 'Hi, your interview date is next week.'
Sick days?