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WhatsApp co-founder accuses Facebook of trading privacy for revenue

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Re: WhatsApp co-founder accuses Facebook of trading privacy for revenue

#61

Post by jeena »

seniorivn wrote: post #41
jeena wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me and a friend we didn't have money but we had a great plan for a company, which already after a year was making a profit. But we needed some investor in the beginning and a friend of my friend just made a lot of money buying and selling a flat in Stockholm and he wanted to invest in us. So he got 51% of the shares and we would get money to start. We two started the company, started making profits after one year and…

Sounds like all the company had is people and your expertise. Why didn't you quit and create a new company with the same people? Also, knowing what you know now, would it be better to sell the whole company when your investor wanted an exit? Or what you think you should've done?

Isn't that what practically all smaller software companies have?

Personal life came in between and people later moved around, etc. now we all have normal regular jobs at bigger companies.

I'd say I learned never give 51% to the person who only invests money but not his life, blood and sweat into it. It's not worth it and it will screw you up.

Re: WhatsApp co-founder accuses Facebook of trading privacy for revenue

#62

Post by brador »

iKevinShah wrote: post #51
kemyd wrote: post #43

I remember his words from an interview "I sold the privacy of my users for a huge profit. I made a decision that compromised my principles, and I must live with that every day." This guy should have his own character in the next season of Silicon Valley series. Give your billions to the poor and move on you poor guy

> Give your billions to the poor and move on you poor guy How exactly is gonna help the people and the guy? It's not that people are not gonna be tracked by tech giants after he donates his billions or something.

He could invest the billions into making viable alternatives that respect user privacy.

Re: WhatsApp co-founder accuses Facebook of trading privacy for revenue

#63

Post by seba_dos1 »

brador wrote: post #62
iKevinShah wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Give your billions to the poor and move on you poor guy How exactly is gonna help the people and the guy? It's not that people are not gonna be tracked by tech giants after he donates his billions or something.

He could invest the billions into making viable alternatives that respect user privacy.

As Conversations showed in the XMPP land, just a single full-time developer paid from his work on the client can make a huge difference. The foundations are strong (XMPP and Matrix), what you need now is some resources. XSF is notoriously understaffed.

Re: WhatsApp co-founder accuses Facebook of trading privacy for revenue

#64

Post by scarface74 »

kemyd wrote: post #43

I remember his words from an interview "I sold the privacy of my users for a huge profit. I made a decision that compromised my principles, and I must live with that every day." This guy should have his own character in the next season of Silicon Valley series. Give your billions to the poor and move on you poor guy

What he think was going to happen when he sold to a company that made its money by advertising based on user’s personal information?

He’s either naive or disingenuous.

Re: WhatsApp co-founder accuses Facebook of trading privacy for revenue

#65

Post by scarface74 »

em500 wrote: post #31
laurynas-s wrote: post #23

With the proposed 1$/yr/user it is going to take around 19 years to become profitable (with 1bn paid users). Facebook obviously wants a return earlier. The founder did take those billions, so not sure what he was expecting to happen, ads looks like the only business model to turn profit quickly in this sort of business. Besides, there are so many people using WhatsApp in developing countries that wouldn't pay if they…

> ads looks like the only business model to turn profit quickly in this sort of business. Tencent makes relatively little from ads in Wechat. They earn most from games and payment fees.

Because selling loot boxes and other in app consumables is so much more ethical....

Re: WhatsApp co-founder accuses Facebook of trading privacy for revenue

#66

Post by scarface74 »

derefr wrote: post #7
cuddlecake wrote: post #3

I just want to say, if I were in his position, I would also trade my company for sweet millions of dollars. But at least I would not constantly call out the people I sold it to, as if my words had any meaning at that point. Also, it's frustrating to me, to see how it's seemingly impossible to care about the users AND have enough users bringing in revenue at the same time so that you are never in a position where big…

I see nothing hypocritical about good people taking payment from evil people. “Payment” means that the resources of the payer go down, and the resources of the payee go up. Now Facebook have less money that they can use to influence the world in stupid/evil ways, and the WhatsApp founders have more money they can use to influence the world in good ways. And, in exchange, since Facebook now owns the service of WhatsAp…

I see nothing hypocritical about good people taking payment from evil people. “Payment” means that the resources of the payer go down, and the resources of the payee go up. Now Facebook have less money that they can use to influence the world in stupid/evil ways, and the WhatsApp founders have more money they can use to influence the world in good ways.

So you really think that Facebook hasn’t made more than the $1 Billion dollars on Instagram thsn ot paid for it?

Re: WhatsApp co-founder accuses Facebook of trading privacy for revenue

#67

Post by erikpukinskis »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #14

Should be pretty concerning coming from an insider. Now could we finally campaign for public authorities and eg. German state TV broadcasters (ZDF) to #deletefacebook?

You want public authorities to delete their Facebook accounts?

Re: WhatsApp co-founder accuses Facebook of trading privacy for revenue

#68

Post by erikpukinskis »

jaabe wrote: post #9

I installed signal, only three of my contacts use it. One is a journalist, one is an artist/designer who does a lot in the crypto space and the last is a fellow enterprise architect. The first two are also active WhatsApp users. I’m as concerned about Facebook as everyone else, but you can’t seem to get around the fact that it’s the modern yellow pages. It’s the only platform,l everyone has, and it’s just incredible…

Facebook got around it, when the yellow pages were the yellow pages.

These platforms always seem indomitable, but they are all susceptible to a disruptive technology.

(As a side note, now that you are on Signal, the next person in your circle who signs up will have 4 contacts instead of 3. And then the next one after that will have 5, and so on. I have a lot more contacts on Signal now than I did when I signed up.)

Re: WhatsApp co-founder accuses Facebook of trading privacy for revenue

#69

Post by erikpukinskis »

rock_hard wrote: post #2

The people who take money just to then talk shit about the people whom their got their money from...that’s really the lowest class of human being. I mean would you want to work with such person?

That doesn't make sense to me. You're saying if you sell someone something, you have a lifelong moral obligation to never criticize them?

You must have meant a weaker version of that but just the general form of it doesn't feel right.

Re: WhatsApp co-founder accuses Facebook of trading privacy for revenue

#70

Post by Joe-Z »

jeena wrote: post #60
Joe-Z wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not giving a guy who’s bringing nothing to the table but money 51% of your company sounds like a good idea. Not trying to be mean, but as soon as I read that I was like „Oh boy...“

That is basically what we learned from it. About a year ago me and two other friends wanted to start a new company and we found investors but they wanted to have those 51% so after many negotiations and back and forth the thing they didn't want to give up was the 51% which lead to us not working together with them. It's just not worth to invest all the work into a new company which you don't own to a degree that you…

Good on you for standing up for yourself. I hope everything worked out in the end!
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