WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by jjeaff » Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 6:50 PM UTC

iagooar wrote: post #232

scarface74 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Many companies take pride in serving their customers, more than making as much money as possible.

It's hard to take pride in your company when even the largest shareholders have small percentages.

Your identity is no longer tied to the company and the only thing left is how much profit per share.

It's sort of like a microchasm of socialism or communism. If you own 9% of apple, people don't blame you personally when apple misbehaves.

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

#262

Post by farhanhubble » Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 6:50 PM UTC

verganileonardo wrote: post #241

mort96 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Right. In fact the clean interface, no ads and high reliability and availability were the features that stood out to me.

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

#263

Post by abalone » Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 6:55 PM UTC

ummonk wrote: post #101

abalone wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It specifically says he didn't settle, because he didn't want to sign an NDA.

Sorry I meant gave up after burning bridges. Their plan was always to bail before monetization kicked in and be able to say they had nothing to do with it. But you don't get a $19B valuation from Facebook for a text messaging arbitrage app without being fully aware of where that money will come from. That's why they didn't forbid it, only required accelerated vesting.

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

#264

Post by vl » Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 6:55 PM UTC

Jyaif wrote: post #11

How 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.

But it's relative, he already cashed out $3B by this pont?

The way I see it he evaluated harm to his health and well-being from doing something he didn't want vs vesting tail of his grant and chose a sane option, because he already vested enough. Similar stories on smaller scale happen all the time with VPs and directors after re-orgs.

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

#265

Post by tomcam » Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 6:58 PM UTC

pentae wrote: post #96

tomcam wrote: post #75

Now 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 o…

I think like most people who sell their business then see it multiply in size and value afterwards, hindsight is a bitch - he regrets it. He was tortured for years thinking about 'what if' he hadn't sold the company and been in control of its destiny. Rather than appreciating the position he's in, which is probably what he should be doing.

I can't read his mind so I don't know if you're right... but it sure feels that way.

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

#266

Post by jamiequint » Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 7:01 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #182

ilovecaching wrote: post #80

You 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 spen…

Please don't post shallow dismissals to HN, and especially not indignant rants. I realize that's what the internet seems to be for, but we're trying to do better than that here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Come on dang, this is incredibly tame due to things posted on other threads constantly. Why call this particular rant out specifically?

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

#267

Post by abalone » Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 7:02 PM UTC

ozgune wrote: post #99

abalone wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come. On. You don’t get to that kind of valuation with a basically free product without ad targeting. An accelerated vesting clause is not an assurance. If they wanted assurances they could have made it a condition of the deal, ok? They didn’t. Accelerated vesting just means they were telegraphing that they wanted to leave before the shit hit the fan.

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.

> The challenge is $1/month is probably too pricey for most of their user base.

The only reason WhatsApp exists is that international carriers were charging higher fees for text messaging while offering lower data rates, creating an arbitrage opportunity. WhatsApp never took off in the U.S. because U.S. carriers were ahead of the curve in shifting to free texting (thanks to the iPhone popularizing unlimited consumer data plans). So yes, this puts a hard ceiling on what WhatsApp could charge.

And that makes them feigning they thought they could justify a $19B valuation without increasing monetization all the more ridiculous. Of course they knew what would happen. That's why the deal was "if you monetize we vest all our stock and leave and cry out loud all the way to the bank," not "you can't monetize."

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

#268

Post by balladeer » Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 7:03 PM UTC

seppin wrote: post #200

computerfriend wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal would be the obvious choice.

An app people actually use would be a more obvious choice.

This is anecdotal.

Out of my 356 contacts only 46 are on Telegram and among them 11 were seen recently (let's assume they still have the app). In last few weeks only 8 of them replied to my messages or read them so I'd say only 8 are actively using it (I checked with the remaining :P).

On Signal, there are just 13 and only 3 replied to me in last few weeks. All of those 3 were coerced by me into installing it on their phones after I deleted my WhatsApp account recently. So basically none of my contacts was actively using Signal (the remaining 10 didn't even receive the messages).

No one was on Matrix/Riot and no one installed it even after my repeated evangelistic encouragements and promise of full time tech support. Can't blame them as I myself find it difficult to use the service/app for any non-Slack/non-IRC kinda usage i.e person to person messaging.

One day I checked just for testing and more people are on https://hike.in than on Telegram from my contact book. That was surprising. Didn't try any further and uninstalled it.

Almost everyone was on WhatsApp and almost everyone was on Fb Messenger too when I used them.

My contact book is very generic - obviously not the very tech savvy specific circle but a decent mix professions and backgrounds. Also, I have keep my contact book regularly trimmed and limited otherwise it would have been a lot more than 356.

So, if I have to choose WhatsApp's replacement based on this criteria then there's really no other choice sadly :( Though I do have some hopes from Acton's $50 million.

PS. I had checked one day and around 20 are on Apple devices (shows iMessage option for them but a lot of them might be on macOS) and except 3-4 of them none use iMessage at all.

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

#269

Post by baxtr » Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 7:04 PM UTC

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'…

Wait a minute... FB had exactly the same business model in 2014 like today. Of course they understand the mechanics of that business model already back then. Shouldn’t they have known better?

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

#270

Post by qubax » Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 7:10 PM UTC

I'm so sick of the self-righteous moralizing and bullshit by the tech elites and the news companies that help push that narrative.

Brian Acton didn't create whatsapp to "do good". Facebook wasn't created to "do good". Google wasn't formed to "do good". People create companies to make money. Why is this so hard for people to understand?

The guy spent 3 years creating a silly messaging app and growing a userbase and sold it for $20 billion. It's like winning the lottery. Maybe he feels guilty. But stop with the patting of one's back and pretending to fallen saints.

He knew well enough what selling whatsapp ( a company that didn't make a single penny ) to facebook for $20 billion meant. Monetization. I would have also sold a shitty messaging app I worked on for 3 years to FB for $20 billion. But I wouldn't go around pretending I was a saint who got hoodwinked afterwards.

Besides, even if the guy didn't sell to FB, he would have had to monetize and sellout eventually because he had venture capitalists to satisfy.

These slimeballs are trying to eat the cake and have it too.