
WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton to leave company - ghosh
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-whatsapp-founder/whatsapp-co-founder-brian-acton-to-leave-company-idUSKCN1BO05Y
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senatorobama
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.

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brudgers
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.

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liberte82
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.

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dzamo_norton
I don't think that the technical scope of the software or the company behind
it were what was being measured against the notion of a "fairytale startup" by
the parent, or the grandparent. They spoke of "greenfield tech", "mind-
boggling earn out", "10 000 millionaires" but the product didn't have to be an
entire operating system. A game could be a fairytale startup then. Flappy Bird
would have done it for me

~~~
liberte82
I guess, but if we're talking about the number of millionaires to come out of
a startup, then I think the scope and size of the company is very relevant.

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inverse_pi
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
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.

~~~
Maro
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.

~~~
shady-lady
Dunno where in Europe you're based but WhatsApp is the defacto messaging app
in Irl & UK

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St0n3d
Same in the Netherlands, Germany and Spain. I saw an article that in the
Netherlands it apparently is installed on 90% of all smartphones. As far as I
know, WhatsApp is pretty much the default in the EU with the exception of
Scandinavian countries. Norway, Sweden, Finland are more often to be found on
Messenger.

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NoB4Mouth
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.

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

~~~
zuluwill
but hopefully coming down considerably. Watch this youtube vide of Tony Seba
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b3ttqYDwF0](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 )

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yuvalmer
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.

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DigitalSea
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
Jam Koum already cashed out in 2016:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Koum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Koum)

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

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logingone
Who's making a bitter comment?

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tsunamifury
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
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?

~~~
tsunamifury
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.

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sreenadh
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.

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jeanlucas
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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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kaskavalci
Sharing a mobile-only link? Really?

[http://www.reuters.com/article/us-whatsapp-
founder/whatsapp-...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-whatsapp-
founder/whatsapp-co-founder-brian-acton-to-leave-company-idUSKCN1BO05Y)

~~~
pc86
Odd that this comment is collapsed by default, while the garbage comment below
it is below 0, but expanded by default.

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ghostrss
WhatsApp is so DEAD.

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

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ghostrss
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?

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BoorishBears
It just seems like a strange first topic after 800 days in read-only mode

