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WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind

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171–180 of 413 posts

Re: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind

#171
post #86

> At a meeting over the issue he said Zuckerberg also told him: “This is probably the last time you’ll ever talk to me.” I realize this was probably said in fruatration, but I think it paints a pretty clear picture of Zuckerberg's arrogance and entitlement.

I think that's a reasonable position in response from an employee trying to "activate a clause written into their contract to allow them to immediately get all their stock if the company began “implementing monetization initiatives” without their consent" . Now whether or not he was in the right to demand it, when actually doing so I doubt anyone expected to have a working relationship after that.

In a vacuum, perhaps, but I think there's more to it than that.

Another account yesterday mentioned plans to put Kevin Systrom under a different manager that would have given him "less access to Zuckerberg." Earlier accounts described them as friendly, always seen together, etc.

It seems like Facebook is a company where access to the CEO is so tightly controlled that it's basically used as a political weapon.

Re: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind

#172

What does whatsapp uses right now to make money? From what i know i dont see any ads there

WhatsApp up until now was not pivoting to a full social network. That, on its own, was worth a lot to Facebook ; if WhatsApp did and was successful, it would have cost Facebook much more than 20B, perhaps closer to 100B in value.

Now that FB got their money’s worth of “WhatsApp not competing”, they want to actually profit of it.

Also, whatsapp’s Interaction and name database (“metadata”) is super useful to Facebook. Likely not $1B useful, but still a database FB would otherwise pay millions for.

Re: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind

#173
post #131
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pre-Facebook, WhatsApp's monetization strategy has been to charge users a nominal fee for usage ($1/year). And $1/yr with 1B users doesn't justify the price tag for Facebook. So Facebook wanted to introduce advertising. PS: I'd be happy to pay them $1/month because a significant part of my communication happens over WhatsApp. The challenge is $1/month is probably too pricey for most of their user base.

If you think that even the friction alone of charging $1/yr isn't enough to shove the vast majority of users off the app, you haven't been paying attention to consumer expectations.

But that's what WhatsApp was doing before.

Re: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind

#174
post #86

> At a meeting over the issue he said Zuckerberg also told him: “This is probably the last time you’ll ever talk to me.” I realize this was probably said in fruatration, but I think it paints a pretty clear picture of Zuckerberg's arrogance and entitlement.

This paints a clear picture of the opposite. An employee saying "this is probably the last time you’ll ever talk to me" to their employer is an arrogant and entitled behavior on behalf of the employee.

Re: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind

#175
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't WhatsApp used to charge a dollar a year?

That would have stopped working in a few years: nowadays lot of different people stopped using WhatsApp almost entirely using Facebook Messanger / Telegram / etc. 1$/year is just too low-proft and too risky

>1$/year is just too low-proft

Thats moving goal posts -- the claim was that WhatsApp was unmonetizable not that it could generate super normal profits.

Re: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind

#176
post #2

SavedYouAClick: because he is a billionaire. I am amazed at just the plain stupidity of some of the writers of well nown papers.

This comment breaks the site guidelines, which ask: "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."

We've asked you quite a few times to stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN. If you don't stop, we're going to have to ban you.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind

#177
post #131
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pre-Facebook, WhatsApp's monetization strategy has been to charge users a nominal fee for usage ($1/year). And $1/yr with 1B users doesn't justify the price tag for Facebook. So Facebook wanted to introduce advertising. PS: I'd be happy to pay them $1/month because a significant part of my communication happens over WhatsApp. The challenge is $1/month is probably too pricey for most of their user base.

If you think that even the friction alone of charging $1/yr isn't enough to shove the vast majority of users off the app, you haven't been paying attention to consumer expectations.

I agree that $1/yr would shove off majority of users off the app. That said, I think WhatsApp could get to revenues of $1-3B per year because of the following:

* I pay $60/mo for my AT&T line. I do the majority of my communication over WhatsApp. In that sense, WhatsApp adds more value to my life than AT&T. There are a group of users who'd be willing to pay more for that value.

* For most users, WhatsApp is an integral part of how they communicate with friends, family, doctors, coworkers, etc. As a consumer, it isn't just an "app" but an integral part of their communication flow.

* WhatsApp is respected by international telcos. I know at least for the telcos in my home country that they'd be happy to charge for WhatsApp subscription as part of their packages.

I think the primary problem was that even if WhatsApp could monetize $1-3/yr per user on average, it still wouldn't have met FB's revenue expectations.

Re: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind

#178
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. That has nothing to do with nobility. So now Snapchat's founders are noble? They did those things you mentioned and your wording is a far cry from their reputation.

Snapchat are trying to become facebook. Whatsapps plan was to charge people money to use their service. Its amyones guess if that would have been successful, but it would have been far nobler than advertising.

Those plans were words. As long as they do not offer a legally binding commitment to their users never to track users/never to do ads in their software etc. there is no reason why one should consider this as more than some vague plan.

As they Romans said "caveat emptor" (the buyer shall beware). Or as is is written in Faust by Goethe: "Denn, was man schwarz auf weiß besitzt, Kann man getrost nach Hause tragen." ("That one can take back home, and use, What someone’s penned in black and white." (source: https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/German/FaustIScene... ).

Re: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind

#179
post #19

Earlier 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.

> There is such a thing as business ethics. TL;DR version of which is "Make as much money as possible or become irrelevant note in history" Edit: Oh, please. Downvotes keep demonstrating a total disconnect between HN responses that require pushing a downvote button and say mass resignation from Google or Facebook or Whatsapp or Well Fargo or Equifax that might trigger a response. So yes, the only business ethics that…

No, the downvotes are for giving them a pass because they're trying to make money.

Re: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, there are plenty of billionaires who make ridiculous statements from time to time. Donald Trump being one of them, for example. WhatsApp's founders are awesome! But Acton shouldn't be surprised that FB behaved as they did. He is smart and knows that publicly he should act surprised.

> I mean, there are plenty of billionaires who make ridiculous statements from time to time. Donald Trump being one of them, for example. I think it was established during the election that he isn't a billionaire. He also makes ridiculous statements on a weekly if not hourly basis, so "from time to time" is misleading.

I think your analysis is like disagreeing about the salinity of different oceans. Either way, they're all pretty damn salty compared to potable water.
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