6 ms·

It’s comical that all of the replies to what you’ve written claim you’re wrong, because you’re actually 100% right. And this is even more true when you remember

by numair 5y ago

It’s comical that all of the replies to what you’ve written claim you’re wrong, because you’re actually 100% right. And this is even more true when you remember that the company had fewer than 20 people for a long time, and that there was only one real goal, that seems to be forgotten: they needed to clone BlackBerry Messenger and get it working on every platform possible. That was it. That’s all they needed to do, and that’s really all that they did. I tried to convince the CEO of Research In Motion, who I worked for, that WhatsApp would end up destroying his business. He thought I was insane for thinking something so small and simple could have such a big effect on his big, important company. Yeah, well, whatever you say, man.

math-dev 5y ago
Nice story. What are you doing now?
- numair 5y ago
  Post-FAANG digital infrastructure. This is that moment, when the cycle starts all over again.
  - dleslie 5y ago
    Anything of note we humble readers should take a look at?
    - numair 5y ago
      I’m having one of those “why can’t there be 36 hours in a day” moments in life, but I’ve got to publish more about this very soon, so, it’s on the way. When you combine the story of WhatsApp’s small team / high impact development with the remote work shift of the past few years, it seems that the next cycle (regardless of when/what it is) will be the first that isn’t centered on SF/SV/California. It’s interesting to think of how that’ll affect the psychology of the area.
      - 908B64B197 5y ago
        > will be the first that isn’t centered on SF/SV/California. I've heard this every 5 years for the last... 25 I think? Still hasn't happened.
      - math-dev 5y ago
        Looking forward to reading it, plz let us know once done
  - EGreg 5y ago
    What specifically?
  - angelzen 5y ago
    Thanks for sharing your insights. With all kindness, this sounds like post-UnionPacific. The neo robber barons have won. To go on with the metaphor, not sure the future holds a car to fulfill point-to-point transportation demand, as our digital information needs are vastly oversupplied. What kind of unmet demand you see out there?
dleslie 5y ago
Also can't overlook that for many SMS was ludicrously overpriced, but the early basic smartphones (palm and symbian) often had wifi capability; WhatsApp provided secure, ludicrously cheap instant messaging across all meaningful handsets. And that's all it had to do; the telecoms weren't interested in making SMS cheap or secure, RIM didn't want BBM on anything but their devices, ICQ/AIM/MSN/etc were similarly unavailable.
- Griffinsauce 5y ago
  > WhatsApp provided secure, ludicrously cheap instant messaging across all meaningful handsets. You can scrap secure from this, the vast majority of users don't care or even know what that means. If SMS was more secure I 100% would still expect whatsapp to win. Convenience and cost are the biggest drivers here.
  - Scoundreller 5y ago
    TBH, I was incredibly disappointed when I discovered that BB shared the same encryption key for all users unless you were on their enterprise system. While I’m just one user, I also discouraged others from buying into them too.
  - jimbokun 5y ago
    > You can scrap secure from this, the vast majority of users don't care or even know what that means. Until you get sued or called in front of legislative bodies to testify about why your customer data was breached. But maybe you're big enough at that point to ride it out. On the other hand, it's very very hard to add in robust security after reaching critical mass.
    - Griffinsauce 5y ago
      I have no idea how your point connects to mine. We're talking about consumers choices here.
      - dleslie 5y ago
Scoundreller 5y ago
Explains how they doubled down on hardware and lost. BB’s market cap is currently a bit over 1/3rd of whatsapp’s acquisition price. And BB has minimal long term debt.
908B64B197 5y ago
> I tried to convince the CEO of Research In Motion, who I worked for, that WhatsApp would end up destroying his business. He thought I was insane for thinking something so small and simple could have such a big effect on his big, important company. Yeah, well, whatever you say, man. I remember selling every BlackBerry stock I had when I got my hands on their touchscreen phone (the Storm was it?). 3 years behind the original iPhone, while Apple had just launched the 3G with the App Store. Guess which phone (and stock) I purchased then? Was there really no-one at BlackBerry following what was going on in the valley at that time?
- giantrobot 5y ago
  There's a number of stories about the insane level of hubris at RIM. Before the iPhone smartphones were seen as "business" phones. RIM reportedly felt like hot shit because they had managed to just not fuck up while Palm, Microsoft, and Nokia tripped over themselves to try to make a BlackBerry But Better. RIM was so focused on the "business" market they really couldn't conceive of a real consumer device. Their upper management apparently looked at the billions of feature phones sold (IIRC Motorola had sold a quarter billion RAZRs by then) and said "nah let's double down on the order of magnitude smaller business market". They dipped their toe in feature phones with the Pearl but it was a joke compared to the original iPhone with its original software that didn't even support MMS. By starting with more consumer friendly features (Web, media player, phone features) Apple had an extremely competent baseline of functionality. As soon as they added workable Exchange integration (iOS 3 or 4?) the iPhone (including older models) instantly became workable business devices. RIM had far more ground to make up for going from business to consumer than Apple had going consumer to business. https://archiveprod.canadianbusiness.com/technology-news/how-management-has-failed-at-rim/ https://archiveprod.canadianbusiness.com/technology-news/how... https://techland.time.com/2013/09/29/the-inside-story-of-the-collapse-of-blackberry/ https://techland.time.com/2013/09/29/the-inside-story-of-the... https://sites.psu.edu/global/2018/02/09/blackberry-and-the-impact-of-resistance-to-change/ https://sites.psu.edu/global/2018/02/09/blackberry-and-the-i...
i_have_an_idea 5y ago
> I tried to convince the CEO of Research In Motion, who I worked for, that WhatsApp would end up destroying his business. He thought I was insane for thinking something so small and simple could have such a big effect on his big, important company. Yeah, well, whatever you say, man. Well, he had a point. What killed BB was the iPhone, not that their chat app was going to lose out to the competition. They simply had a product that was inferior in every single important way.
- cinntaile 5y ago
  People owned a BB because of its built-in message service.
  - aeoanx 5y ago
    A lot of people liked the keyboard
- hello_moto 5y ago
  It's attack from both directions: BB and BBM are network effect. iPhone alone is not enough to disrupt the social-media aspect of BBM (which was very sticky at that time in quite a few countries). WhatsApp + Android actually killed BB+BBM in those countries and not the expensive iPhone
6sp 5y ago
Mike might have taken longer to get it than Jim but he eventually understood the existential threat they faced. He realized this at a time they could have possibly changed course but was unable to do so because the board did not have faith in such a drastic change. The plan to cannibalize device sales today vs promise of future software revenue did not sound so promising for the board, who I imagine were interested only quarterly profits and their stock price.
- numair 5y ago
  Mike wasted a ton of my time, and squandered the opportunity to use the brain trust of Facebook insiders, including the guy who designed Facebook, who I assembled to jump ship and build a new future on top of BBM. A few months later he sent me a message letting me know his private jet had just landed in Palo Alto... Did he want me to be proud of the fact that he seemed to be selling out all of RIM’s IP to Zuckerberg? I never got what that was about. Both of Mike and Jim were in over their heads. And too arrogant to let people younger and smarter operate the ship. A tale as old as time itself. I’ll write about this in detail at some point, I promise.

by numair 5y ago

math-dev 5y ago

Nice story. What are you doing now?

numair 5y ago
Post-FAANG digital infrastructure. This is that moment, when the cycle starts all over again.
- dleslie 5y ago
  Anything of note we humble readers should take a look at?
  - numair 5y ago
    I’m having one of those “why can’t there be 36 hours in a day” moments in life, but I’ve got to publish more about this very soon, so, it’s on the way. When you combine the story of WhatsApp’s small team / high impact development with the remote work shift of the past few years, it seems that the next cycle (regardless of when/what it is) will be the first that isn’t centered on SF/SV/California. It’s interesting to think of how that’ll affect the psychology of the area.
    - 908B64B197 5y ago
      > will be the first that isn’t centered on SF/SV/California. I've heard this every 5 years for the last... 25 I think? Still hasn't happened.
    - math-dev 5y ago
      Looking forward to reading it, plz let us know once done
- EGreg 5y ago
  What specifically?
- angelzen 5y ago
  Thanks for sharing your insights. With all kindness, this sounds like post-UnionPacific. The neo robber barons have won. To go on with the metaphor, not sure the future holds a car to fulfill point-to-point transportation demand, as our digital information needs are vastly oversupplied. What kind of unmet demand you see out there?

dleslie 5y ago

Also can't overlook that for many SMS was ludicrously overpriced, but the early basic smartphones (palm and symbian) often had wifi capability; WhatsApp provided secure, ludicrously cheap instant messaging across all meaningful handsets. And that's all it had to do; the telecoms weren't interested in making SMS cheap or secure, RIM didn't want BBM on anything but their devices, ICQ/AIM/MSN/etc were similarly unavailable.

Griffinsauce 5y ago
> WhatsApp provided secure, ludicrously cheap instant messaging across all meaningful handsets. You can scrap secure from this, the vast majority of users don't care or even know what that means. If SMS was more secure I 100% would still expect whatsapp to win. Convenience and cost are the biggest drivers here.
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  TBH, I was incredibly disappointed when I discovered that BB shared the same encryption key for all users unless you were on their enterprise system. While I’m just one user, I also discouraged others from buying into them too.
- jimbokun 5y ago
  > You can scrap secure from this, the vast majority of users don't care or even know what that means. Until you get sued or called in front of legislative bodies to testify about why your customer data was breached. But maybe you're big enough at that point to ride it out. On the other hand, it's very very hard to add in robust security after reaching critical mass.
  - Griffinsauce 5y ago
    I have no idea how your point connects to mine. We're talking about consumers choices here.
    - dleslie 5y ago

Scoundreller 5y ago

Explains how they doubled down on hardware and lost. BB’s market cap is currently a bit over 1/3rd of whatsapp’s acquisition price. And BB has minimal long term debt.

908B64B197 5y ago

> I tried to convince the CEO of Research In Motion, who I worked for, that WhatsApp would end up destroying his business. He thought I was insane for thinking something so small and simple could have such a big effect on his big, important company. Yeah, well, whatever you say, man. I remember selling every BlackBerry stock I had when I got my hands on their touchscreen phone (the Storm was it?). 3 years behind the original iPhone, while Apple had just launched the 3G with the App Store. Guess which phone (and stock) I purchased then? Was there really no-one at BlackBerry following what was going on in the valley at that time?

giantrobot 5y ago
There's a number of stories about the insane level of hubris at RIM. Before the iPhone smartphones were seen as "business" phones. RIM reportedly felt like hot shit because they had managed to just not fuck up while Palm, Microsoft, and Nokia tripped over themselves to try to make a BlackBerry But Better. RIM was so focused on the "business" market they really couldn't conceive of a real consumer device. Their upper management apparently looked at the billions of feature phones sold (IIRC Motorola had sold a quarter billion RAZRs by then) and said "nah let's double down on the order of magnitude smaller business market". They dipped their toe in feature phones with the Pearl but it was a joke compared to the original iPhone with its original software that didn't even support MMS. By starting with more consumer friendly features (Web, media player, phone features) Apple had an extremely competent baseline of functionality. As soon as they added workable Exchange integration (iOS 3 or 4?) the iPhone (including older models) instantly became workable business devices. RIM had far more ground to make up for going from business to consumer than Apple had going consumer to business. https://archiveprod.canadianbusiness.com/technology-news/how-management-has-failed-at-rim/ https://archiveprod.canadianbusiness.com/technology-news/how... https://techland.time.com/2013/09/29/the-inside-story-of-the-collapse-of-blackberry/ https://techland.time.com/2013/09/29/the-inside-story-of-the... https://sites.psu.edu/global/2018/02/09/blackberry-and-the-impact-of-resistance-to-change/ https://sites.psu.edu/global/2018/02/09/blackberry-and-the-i...

i_have_an_idea 5y ago

> I tried to convince the CEO of Research In Motion, who I worked for, that WhatsApp would end up destroying his business. He thought I was insane for thinking something so small and simple could have such a big effect on his big, important company. Yeah, well, whatever you say, man. Well, he had a point. What killed BB was the iPhone, not that their chat app was going to lose out to the competition. They simply had a product that was inferior in every single important way.

cinntaile 5y ago
People owned a BB because of its built-in message service.
- aeoanx 5y ago
  A lot of people liked the keyboard
hello_moto 5y ago
It's attack from both directions: BB and BBM are network effect. iPhone alone is not enough to disrupt the social-media aspect of BBM (which was very sticky at that time in quite a few countries). WhatsApp + Android actually killed BB+BBM in those countries and not the expensive iPhone

6sp 5y ago

Mike might have taken longer to get it than Jim but he eventually understood the existential threat they faced. He realized this at a time they could have possibly changed course but was unable to do so because the board did not have faith in such a drastic change. The plan to cannibalize device sales today vs promise of future software revenue did not sound so promising for the board, who I imagine were interested only quarterly profits and their stock price.

numair 5y ago
Mike wasted a ton of my time, and squandered the opportunity to use the brain trust of Facebook insiders, including the guy who designed Facebook, who I assembled to jump ship and build a new future on top of BBM. A few months later he sent me a message letting me know his private jet had just landed in Palo Alto... Did he want me to be proud of the fact that he seemed to be selling out all of RIM’s IP to Zuckerberg? I never got what that was about. Both of Mike and Jim were in over their heads. And too arrogant to let people younger and smarter operate the ship. A tale as old as time itself. I’ll write about this in detail at some point, I promise.