You know what’s cool? Turning down twenty billion dollars
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You know what’s cool? Turning down twenty billion dollars
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Re: You know what’s cool? Turning down twenty billion dollars
#2Brian Acton turned down way more than this guy ever made, so I say he is already pretty cool.
Re: You know what’s cool? Turning down twenty billion dollars
#3Brian Acton turned down way more than this guy ever made, so I say he is already pretty cool.
It sounds like you missed the point of the article.
You can't take the ink out of the water, once it's in. When you sell your autonomy over a product whose properties give your life meaning, you pour the ink. Even more painful if that product then turns around and comes to represent values opposite yours.
Short of a buyback, which in this case is off the table, there's no sum that rectifies the regret of lost opportunity and the turning of the thing you built against you.
It's a hair callous DHH to be so direct about it, but as an observation, it seems sound – Acton appears to be a distraught billionaire when he might have been a sound-sleeping millionaire.
Perhaps that's not a trade worth making.
Re: You know what’s cool? Turning down twenty billion dollars
#4Dude knew what would happen when he took the billions of dollars. Pretty much everyone who's forced to work in the rat race will take the deal. It's so stupid for rich people to speculate on what entrepreneurs who are scraping by should do ethically.
Re: You know what’s cool? Turning down twenty billion dollars
#5“The bastion of hope that was WhatsApp is gone.“
There’s no technical barrier to building the same thing from scratch....
Re: You know what’s cool? Turning down twenty billion dollars
#6Brian Acton turned down way more than this guy ever made, so I say he is already pretty cool.
It sounds like you missed the point of the article. You can't take the ink out of the water, once it's in. When you sell your autonomy over a product whose properties give your life meaning, you pour the ink. Even more painful if that product then turns around and comes to represent values opposite yours. Short of a buyback, which in this case is off the table, there's no sum that rectifies the regret of lost opportu…
On the plus-side, that money has bought him the choice to build whatever, whenever, almost never having to beg for financing ever again and the choice to not sell.
DHH often talks like bootstrapping and not selling is The One True Way™ but, financing trades equity for time: accelerating traction or traction-ability that can beat someone else to market (T2M). It's a slower path, but it's not rushed either. Pluses and minuses to both, and it depend on the category and circumstances
Re: You know what’s cool? Turning down twenty billion dollars
#7“The bastion of hope that was WhatsApp is gone.“ There’s no technical barrier to building the same thing from scratch....
Users. The critical mass of users that's required for this to happen comes once in a rare while.