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WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind
71–80 of 413 posts
Re: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is such a thing as business ethics. Facebook's complete disregard for them should not be the norm, even if it, sadly, might be more often than not.
>> What year would it be ok to be naive enough to think that any for profit company’s main motivation is not to make as much money possible? > There is such a thing as business ethics. > Facebook's complete disregard for them should not be the norm, even if it, sadly, might be more often than not. It's alarming how businesses' lack of business ethics is getting normalized by comments like the grandparent's. We should…
How do we as individuals “require” companies to be ethical? At the end of the day, we don’t have the power to enforce ethics. We have to work within the framework of reality and get everything in writing.
Re: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind
#73I have just deleted WhatsApp from my phone. I am not really sure though what to replace it with for the occasional foreign phone calls.
GNU Ring seems nice and quite cross-platform: https://ring.cx/
Re: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind
#74“used him” i have little sympathy for such actors. i’ve known people who got rich on stock options in the ‘00s and then fled california while decrying the rat race. this is the same thing. if you really mean it, donate all the money to charity, an ed foundation, or some such. i’ll even forgive you for keeping 10mm for yourself. otherwise, cry me a river.
You're absolutely correct despite the downvotes. Of course everyone is allowed to voice their opinion about privacy, but people with power or money should put their money (or power) where their mouth is: fund an alternative. Also, "used him" doesn't mean it was not consensual in this case.
Re: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind
#75Now I find myself in the unfortunate position of defending Facebook, a site I barely use and whose founder does not to me represent the best of Silicon Valley. He took their money. He should just shut up. There was never any question about what Facebook was dealing with its data. Never. They have always been explicit about it in their user agreement. He didn’t seem to mind when he took billions from them. I have an old-fashioned sense of ethics and cannot understand how someone would like that would bad-mouth the public company he benefited so richly from, when he knew all along what they were doing. There are no heroes in this story.
Re: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind
#76How an individual can leave $850M on the table to prove a point blows my mind. I'm in awe at that guy, but I can't help but think that with $850M he could have funded so many interesting projects/research.
When you have money and principles you believe in, its not that hard.
How many times have you walked away from 9 digit sums?
Re: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
The "dumb fucks"[0] thing came out in 2010. The WhatsApp acquisition was in 2014. [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-im...
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that’s a bit of silly wordsmithing. you are technically right in the general case, but in this case we can indeed infer bad intentions. one doesn’t need to imagine good or bad intentions, one can simply look at the facts in the ground (even at the time, not later in hindsight).
he was preying on people’s naivete and admitted as much.
Re: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind
#78“used him” i have little sympathy for such actors. i’ve known people who got rich on stock options in the ‘00s and then fled california while decrying the rat race. this is the same thing. if you really mean it, donate all the money to charity, an ed foundation, or some such. i’ll even forgive you for keeping 10mm for yourself. otherwise, cry me a river.
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Re: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the article (first paragraph, too): > Brian Acton, who left Facebook a year ago — before going on to publicly bite the hand that fed him, by voicing support for the #DeleteFacebook movement (and donating $50M to alternative encrypted messaging app, Signal) And: > And for leaving a cool ~$850M in unvested stock on the table by not sticking it out a few more months inside Zuckerberg’s mothership, as co-founder Jan…
You left out the part where he expected and tried to get the $850M but FB’s lawyers pushed back and he settled after burning bridges. $50M is 0.7% of his net worth last I checked (maybe it’s changed). Look, I’m glad they’re not still at Facebook but this is hypocritical posturing. They’re not giving the money back. They’re crying all the way to the bank.
Oh I'm not saying he's a saint, but that things like donating $50M to Signal are nothing to sneeze at or ignore.
Re: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind
#80You must be either the most
naieve person on the planet or a complete moron to sell your company to an advertising company and not expect them to put advertising in your product. Of course he wasn’t noble enough to turn down the money in the first place and turn his product into a big buisness by himself. WhatsApp was literally just a user grab based on a ToDo list app idea released at the right time. Guy should spend Facebooks money on some therapy and move on with his life.