591–600 of 831 posts
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"(if we exclude the US and China)" That's at least half of the world, if not in users, at least in revenue. What the hell!
Less than half. Europe and India easily make up for the US and China and then you still have South- and Middle America as well as South-East Asia (and Africa).
*for lack of a better word
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It's not really "pop" technology. Surprisingly, it's not used much in the United States, but in India it's basically a replacement for text messaging. Everyone from a 13 year old child to my grand mom uses it to keep in touch with friends and family members across the globe. IMHO, they were able to get to such widespread everyday usage because they such awesome and reliable technology. Much better than what Google ha…
This suggests that its userbase is EXACTLY complementary for Facebook.
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I'll admit to a distinct feeling, that I've started to lose touch with pop technology. I've never heard of WhatsApp. Though I had most definitely heard of Hotmail in 1998.
It's not really "pop" technology. Surprisingly, it's not used much in the United States, but in India it's basically a replacement for text messaging. Everyone from a 13 year old child to my grand mom uses it to keep in touch with friends and family members across the globe. IMHO, they were able to get to such widespread everyday usage because they such awesome and reliable technology. Much better than what Google ha…
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I think it's quite rare that any individual employee (probably excluding founders) is responsible for a significant percentage of the value of a company.
I mean, if you assume only 10% of that value is going to employees, then you need only half a percent (0.5%) of that to get a $800k bonus. If you've only been there 2-3 years, that's a substantial bonus that pushes your pay above market rate.
16B * 10% * .5% = 8 Million
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CEO of Whatsapp prided on not listening in private conversation or collecting personal data, which Facebook ACTIVELY does.
The CEO just had a higher price than most other people. To get $16bn cash from Facebook is hilarious. Next time a start-up says they won't pay you market rate because of x, y, and z just walk away and laugh. For the sake of a few thousand dollars in wages, you could make them billions. Don't work for cheap bastards. Funny how engineers are supposed to sacrifice yet we never see a lawyer or accountant charge below mar…
And yes I do agree with you. I recently rejected a offer from a start up for offering 50% below market rate.
Seems like I made a smart decision.
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> in countries with SMS charges The funny thing is that in places like USA, you pay exorbitant amounts (~20 USD per month) for text messaging (when the real cost should be almost 0), yet it's still not caught on here - which is kinda sad.
It's just because it matters more that we have all of our contacts than save $20 a month. I think you'd need higher priced SMS or a very large WhatsApp userbase.
I'm way above that, yet I opted for the pay per text plan and paid 20 cents per text. All my friends made fun of me, but I saved a few dollars since iMessage didn't count toward my costs. However, it effected how people without iPhones would naturally choose to interact with me.
Basically, everyone loves iMessage, but no one thinks twice about alternatives. The general assumption seems to be that it's a god given right that you can send a text to a phone number. iMessage did such wonders obscuring that, whereas having to actually download some other app unveils everything.
Maybe I'm not down with the kids, but I'm not understanding what any of these message apps offer over plain old fashioned email. It alerts me on my phone, it works on my computer, it sends to groups, everyone already has it, it sends photos, it stores a history of all my past communications in one place accessible from anywhere. It's not completely secure but at least you don't have to trust any foreign corporation (…