WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton to leave company

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-whatsapp-founder/whatsapp-co-founder-brian-acton-to-leave-company-idUSKCN1BO05Y

by ghosh • 9 years ago

119 69 9 years ago

gourou2• 9 years ago

That's almost 3 years (October 6th 2014) since FB's acquisition, social media would have been much different today had they acquired Snapchat.

DigitalSea• 9 years ago

I'm guessing his stock has vested and he can now cash it out. Good on him, it was a nice success story selling for as much as they did to Facebook.

sdfjkl• 9 years ago

Jam Koum already cashed out in 2016: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Koum

jeanlucas2• 9 years ago

shh... He wants to make a bitter comment, let him be

gourou2• 9 years ago

He cashed out half of his FB stock

AndrewKemendo3• 9 years ago

You know, not everyone wants to be at the same company for 8 years. The whole idea that if a co-founder leaves its a bad thing is antiquated.

After a while you want to do something different.

forgottenpass2• 9 years ago

It's fine if they just want to do something different, but leaving isn't only seen as a reflection of their opinion of the post-accusation company. It still represents a brain drain regardless of motivation.

gjjrfcbugxbhf• 9 years ago

How will this affect their direction and approach as far as the end user is concerned?

kaskavalci• 9 years ago

Sharing a mobile-only link? Really?

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-whatsapp-founder/whatsapp-...

pc86• 9 years ago

Odd that this comment is collapsed by default, while the garbage comment below it is below 0, but expanded by default.

jeanlucas2• 9 years ago

Hope now WhatsApp start caring more about business and integrations. As basically the only option for communication software in Latin America, it feels a lot behind.

calvinbhai• 9 years ago

Whatsapp for business is already in beta trials in India. I'm sure they are ironing out the wrinkles before releasing it worldwide. I think probably end of this year or early next year.

Its a huge 'about to be tapped' market by FB that many people (mostly those who dont use WA) have a tough time fathoming.

tsunamifury3• 9 years ago

Out of real curiosity, what business integrations would be at the top of your list?

Nothorized• 9 years ago

Being able to pay someone, being able to command something out of the app. Being more like WeChat, literally.

senatorobama• 9 years ago

I swear to God, WhatsApp is THE startup fairytale.

No dilution, bootstrapped, greenfield tech and mind boggling earn out. A once in a generation business story.

I always mention WhatsApp when people want to do something overly complicated.

AndrewKemendo3• 9 years ago

Agreed, not to mention Sequoia literally went and hunted the Founders down on foot in SF [1].

[1] https://youtu.be/8-pJa11YvCs?t=8m22s

champagnepapi• 9 years ago

Great video.

noir_lord• 9 years ago

That's like something out of SV (HBO's show).

sah2ed2• 9 years ago

Interesting video.

Brian Goetz mentioned that Sequoia built a tool they called "Early Bird" to help them keep track of messaging apps that show lots of traction in non-US app stores which was how they knew they really needed to get a Whatsapp deal, at any cost.

amelius• 9 years ago

I swear to God, WhatsApp is THE startup fairytale.

May I suggest a Black Swan as the main character for your fairytale? :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory

devmunchies• 9 years ago

greenfield tech

how so?

forgottenpass2• 9 years ago

We like startups here, so we pretend they didn't leverage ejabberd.

brudgers• 9 years ago

The fairytale for startup employees is probably Microsoft and its 10,000 millionaires. But that was two generations ago. A generation ago, it was 'The Google Chef' and far fewer millionaires though several thousand. While WhatsApp created a lot of wealth, it did not create a lot of wealthy people. That seems to be the trend.

whipoodle2• 9 years ago

Remember when Zynga clawed back options because "unimportant" employees were going to make money? Heck, remember Zynga?

creaghpatr• 9 years ago

Nowadays the 'google chef' would be an underpaid temp supplied by an agency.

liberte822• 9 years ago

To be realistic, Whatsapp is massive and popular, but totally incomparable to Microsoft or Google as a company. Whatsapp is a chat app, Microsoft is the operating system and office software of 1.25 billion computers around the world.

Apocryphon• 9 years ago

You don't need a huge team to build WhatsApp or Instagram. Guess software is eating the world- including itself.

umeshunni• 9 years ago

The reason for the trend, of course, is that companies are staying private longer to maximize returns for early investors and VCs.

whipoodle2• 9 years ago

Also didn't focus on US. I'd wager most Americans haven't heard of it. Seems relevant.

abalone• 9 years ago

Simplicity is part of it but it's really also the business model. With good focus they exploited a unique opportunity at just the right moment: SMS arbitrage. To offer "free" messaging when carriers were beginning to offer affordable data plans for third party apps, yet still trying to disproportionately monetize SMS. And this came with a very, very strong network effect.

If carriers had proactively disrupted their business model and offered free/cheap SMS sooner, it's unlikely that WhatsApp would have succeeded despite their simplicity and focus. This is why they never took off in the U.S., where carriers did away with SMS fees faster.

Having said that, focus is absolutely a reason why WhatsApp beat out its other free-messaging app competition. But the "mind-boggling earn out" is more about the business model -- network effects, exploiting incumbent blindspots, etc.

inverse_pi• 9 years ago

He has 6.5 BILLIONS. That's almost double what Brian Chesky (CEO Airbnb) has including paper money, more than Evan (CEO Snapchat) has, and more than Travis (CEO Uber) has including the ridiculous valuation. Just an observation.

Danihan• 9 years ago

Much more than YouTube sold for, total acquisition price. Which I thought was incredible at the time (and still do, considering how difficult is has been for Google to monetize, it seems.)

I think WhatsApp was just overvalued, personally. It's excellent in many ways, but I cannot see Facebook ever making their money back on it.

ThrustVectoring• 9 years ago

Acquiring threatening social competitors may be, in part, a cost of doing Facebook's core business. That is: Facebook bought WhatsApp not because they expected to make money off the acquisition, but because they were worried that they'd lose money from not doing so.

salsadip• 9 years ago

In much of the world, WhatsApp is the preferred way of communication, instead of Facebook/FBMessenger. I use WhatsApp for very personal conversations with friends and family - breakups happen over WhatsApp, dates planned, personal news are all communicated through WhatsApp. Tapping into these kind of messages which tell FB way more than likes on pictures etc is invaluable for selling ads in my opinion. Even considering E2E encryption, I don't believe FB is not analysing this data when they have the opportunity to do so - the text analysis probably happens on device.

Maro• 9 years ago

Today I was sitting in a hotel lounge in Dubai and a lady asked me to help send her geolocation to her friend. She asked whether she can use my Whatsapp. I said I don't have Whatsapp, but I have Messenger abd Viber. She looked at me very bewildered and asked, "You don't have Whatsapp? Why would you use Messenger?" I explained to her that in Europe we use Messenger and Viber, not Whatsapp. She thought I'm crazy. In the end I gave her hotspot and she left me to my crazy Messengering.

skinnymuch• 9 years ago

That really is crazy. And Jam Koum has already cashed out at least half his stocks. Billions cashed out. The amount of money between those two guys is insane.

Similarly it's crazy to see how high up people like Moskovitz are in billionaire lists. I've gotten used to Facebook being a $400B company (now they are a $500B company), so obviously stock owners like Moskovitz will be worth tens of billions, but it's still crazy nonetheless. Just checked. He's ranked 60th richest.

yueq• 9 years ago

I guess Jam Koum has been autoselling his vested stocks for a while since I often see his name on FB's insider activity list.

ghostrss2• 9 years ago

WhatsApp is so DEAD.

BoorishBears2• 9 years ago

Off topic, but what's up with an 800 day old account with no submissions and only this as it's first comment?

ghostrss2• 9 years ago

Because, Facebook is ruining WhatsApp.

Facebook sells information of its users. And yet people are happily feeding their data.

Even WhatsApp's founders were not happy with the Facebook's policy. For them it was a mistakes that they became a product of Facebook.

Yes, I've a problem with that. Don't you think its legit?

tsunamifury3• 9 years ago

While I understand why the founder would leave at this point, WhatsApp is probably the platform with the most upside gain opportunity in existence today.

It has proved that a new paradigm of software development is ready to be opened up in the developing world, has small and big businesses knocking down the door to get in, and the highest daily active user base around. The only downside is how they've failed to scale to accomidate the opportunity.

But maybe they are right to go slow as they have network lock in.

alexashka• 9 years ago

What is this upside gain opportunity you speak of?

From my limited understanding - WhatsApp merely made free (or extremely cheap) texting possible, bypassing cellular providers who charged an arm and a leg for text messages. That's their contribution. Is there something else? What's this new paradigm of software development?

tsunamifury3• 9 years ago

Micro-interfaces & payments being pushed via messaging. Tens of millions of businesses area already trying to hack it together via WhatsApp's existing features. For an existing example look at WeChat, which has limited application outside China but represents WhatsApp's future.

yuvalmer• 9 years ago

The interesting thing about WhatsApp is that most of my American friends haven't heard about it by the time it was acquired for $19B. One of the biggest success stories of a US based company that went global first.

Good luck to Brian on his next adventure.

NoB4Mouth• 9 years ago

I'm from an African country where Whatsapp has played a major role in the political uprising against autocratic governments. Its power to mobilize the masses to go on the streets and protest is incredible. Radios and TV stations couldn't do that due to the pressure and their fear of being shut down by authorities. But Authorities have found a way to mute Whatsapp: shutting down the Internet. Just search : "Internet or Whtasapp shut down in Cameroun, Gabon, DR Congo or Togo" to find out. We are currently looking for alternatives to Whatsapp messenger that can work even when the Net is down. Suggestions are welcome.

baq• 9 years ago

mesh net, but they'll just bring the power down. maybe solar-powered with battery backup? but that gets expensive.

zuluwill• 9 years ago

but hopefully coming down considerably. Watch this youtube vide of Tony Seba https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b3ttqYDwF0 (Stanford University futurist Tony Seba spent the last decades studying technological disruptions. He argues that the Electric Vehicle, battery storage, and solar power, along with autonomous vehicles, are a perfect example of a 10x exponential process which will wipe )

davedx• 9 years ago

Yep! Mesh nets are great. Look up guifi.net, it's a large mesh net in Spain, for inspiration.

Solar panels are relatively cheap these days. Maybe you don't need battery backup.

1024core• 9 years ago

Same is happening in India. The government will shut down an entire area's mobile Internet just to prevent people from mobilizing.

rakoo• 9 years ago

I have no idea how well this works, but the Serval Project aims to let people communicate when the network is down:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serval_Project

aluminussoma• 9 years ago

New foundation, or maybe he finally got a job at Twitter?: https://twitter.com/brianacton/status/1895942068

(The backstory is: Brian Acton was rejected from Facebook and Twitter in 2009)

sreenadh• 9 years ago

My only issue with whatsapp is how the data is stored in a central place. I am a person switching between ios and android and I have lost a lot of data. Plus even has issue in the same device after formatting.

I am not a big fan of having my mobile number as my identity as I keep moving around and change my mobile when I get a better package. I wanted an app that assign me a unique id and I can share in that my current mobile number where people can call me in.

Just yesterday, I was looking at a phone running all the various IM apps and whatsapp was the lowest with 18mb, IMO was 40mb while facebook was 100+ mb. not sure if it was the messenger alone or facebook + messenger.

Facebook doesn't seems to be interested in improving whatsapp.

WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton to leave company

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