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

forbes.com

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

#241

Post by verganileonardo »

mort96 wrote: post #228
dasil003 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, 2014 makes no material difference. It's not the recent scandals that have somehow revealed Facebook to be the spiritual successor to Microsoft's "embrace and extend" strategy; this has been obvious for at least a decade. Maybe the public didn't realize it yet, but anyone in tech, especially a successful founding team would have been well aware. That said, I'm not going to demonize these guys. Brian Acton clearly…

I think demonizing the guys behind WhatsApp is entirely warranted. They built up a large userbase around promises of privacy and encryption, and then promptly sold those users to fucking Facebook. Whether they were just gullible and didn't do their due diligence, or if they were malignant, doesn't really make a big difference.

How many Whatsapp users care about privacy and encryption? How many chose Whatsapp because of that?

I believe most users simply use it because it is the most used messaging app in their country

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

#242

Post by OhHeyItsE »

hef19898 wrote: post #42
mattnewport wrote: post #7

This article seems a little unfair to the WhatsApp founders when it suggests they should have known that any assurances Facebook made to them as part of the acquisition were obviously lies. Sure in 2018 it might be obvious to most of us that nothing Facebook says or promises can be trusted but I don't think that was necessarily as obvious when the acquisition happened and they can be forgiven for thinking they weren'…

Well, yes and no. Back the day, Facebook and Zuckerberg were the shining examples of successful Silicon Valley companies and founders with a good mission. That Zuckerberg, at the young age, managed to retain control of facebook all the way up to, and beyond, the ICO should have given them pause so. That hints a certain personality (no judgement intended in that assessment). But that is 20/20 hindsight which is always…

> the ICO should have given them pause

Freudian slip? :)

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

#243

Post by leothekim »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #235
leothekim wrote: post #215

I can't help but go back to Mark Zuckerberg's letter when Facebook was preparing to IPO: "... we don’t build services to make money; we make money to build better services. "And we think this is a good way to build something. These days I think more and more people want to use services from companies that believe in something beyond simply maximizing profits." [1] I mean, there was no way he was going to drop $22 bil…

>I mean, there was no way he was going to drop $22 billion dollars on something and not get a return. There's plenty of valid business reasons to spend money on ventures that aren't "net present value of cash flow projections exceed costs". There can be indirect effects like maintaining a moat - buying WhatsApp can be worthwhile simply to ensure that other companies can't use it to compete with Facebook's core busine…

Definitely, great point. For Facebook + WhatsApp, I'd bet that this is a case of Mark having a giant ad revenue hammer, and everything else that's corralling eyeballs is inevitably going to be a nail.

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

#244

Post by justaguyhere »

waterhouse wrote: post #169
madrox wrote: post #163

I'm sure Acton and Koum told themselves they were also keeping the power to be in control. I'm sure they went into it thinking they could avoid this end. The brain is a powerful rationalizer when it sees generational wealth within reach. The indignant tone of the comments here make me laugh. There are very few things I can imagine readers of HN not doing for a billion dollars. People may say otherwise, but until they…

Not saying you're not mostly right, but there is the case of Jean-Baptiste Kempf, maintainer of VLC, who apparently turned down tens of millions to put ads into VLC. (I suppose that is two orders of magnitude smaller than a billion.) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15372048

He is an exception. I guess 99% (or maybe more) of the people in his situation would've taken the money, and they'd probably be doing right for themselves and their families. Ethics is always a nuanced topic.

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

#246

Post by nostrademons »

scarface74 wrote: post #239
nostrademons wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL, but my understanding is that this isn't true, and the whole subfield of tort law [1] is about the rights and obligations that firms have even in the absence of a contract. If you steal trade secrets from a competitor, even if you have no contract or business relationship with them, they can still sue you for a very large amount of money and possibly get an injunction against using that stolen information. Simi…

And how well will a handshake - he said/she said agreement hold up in court? How easy is it for one party to “misremember” what was said? There is a reason almost every contract has an “entire agreements clause”

Torts aren't handshake agreements. They're duties that the state decides that all organizations owe to citizens or other organizations, by virtue of existing, but which should be enforced by the party who is actually wronged. (This is what distinguishes them from "crimes", which are forbidden actions that the state actively pursues.)

In this case, Acton's not the aggrieved party. The consumer is - they could argue that Facebook's introduction of advertising and linking of user data harmed them in a way they had not agreed to when they signed up for Whatsapp, or that its purchase violated antitrust law and reduced consumer choice. But good luck enforcing that, at least in the US, where privacy protections are weak and antitrust regulators are asleep. It looks like the EU regulators actually did enforce it, and slapped FB with a $122M fine, but that's peanuts for them.

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

#247

Post by itry2develop »

mort96 wrote: post #228
dasil003 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, 2014 makes no material difference. It's not the recent scandals that have somehow revealed Facebook to be the spiritual successor to Microsoft's "embrace and extend" strategy; this has been obvious for at least a decade. Maybe the public didn't realize it yet, but anyone in tech, especially a successful founding team would have been well aware. That said, I'm not going to demonize these guys. Brian Acton clearly…

I think demonizing the guys behind WhatsApp is entirely warranted. They built up a large userbase around promises of privacy and encryption, and then promptly sold those users to fucking Facebook. Whether they were just gullible and didn't do their due diligence, or if they were malignant, doesn't really make a big difference.

Have someone wave over $3 billion in your face and see how long your values last... Besides his investors would likely arrange an accident for him if he held out on a deal like that.

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

#248

Post by [deleted] »

ozgune wrote: post #177
sp527 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 integra…

[deleted]

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

#249

Post by hardlianotion »

lazerwalker wrote: post #227
jschwartzi wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what I do with Uber. I don't use it. I use Lyft. This is because I don't consider Uber an ethical company, nor do I particularly like their HR and other management practices. I don't know very much about Lyft but I have yet to hear anything bad about them which is pretty encouraging.

Peter Thiel is a major investor and board seat holder in Lyft. If your politics lead you to believe Uber is not an ethical company, that might also give you pause.

Genuine question. Is Peter Thiel known to be unethical?

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

#250

Post by jerguismi »

So... Basically he cashed out billions. That is ridiculous amount of money. Now he said "no" to $850 millions for moral reasons, and the moral action here is mostly that he won't work for facebook any more.

For me this sounds quite ridiculous. He already cashed out as they sold the unprofitable service for ridiculous amount of money. Facebook has to generate profit for shareholders so they have to monetize it somehow. It is quite easy for him to say "yeah I'm morally superior, thanks for the money but I don't want the product to be profitable that way you know, now when you have paid me..."

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