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When you realize that WhatsApp had 450 million monthly active users and only 55 employees at the time of its acquisition by Facebook in 2014, you start to think
by krn 4y ago
When you realize that WhatsApp had 450 million monthly active users and only 55 employees at the time of its acquisition by Facebook in 2014, you start to think that those tens of thousands of employees might be more needed for Meta's ad business.
- whatever1 4y agoWhatsApp was bloated for what it was. Just a chatting app. People design and implement these things in a weekend. Many interviews casually ask you to implement a chatting app. By yourself.
- rjh29 4y agoNot true. WhatsApp performed exceptionally well for its scale. The team was very talented and experienced at writing optimised code. But I agree that Facebook is significantly larger in scope.
- ninth_ant 4y agoIt's not just that they wrote some very optimized code -- though it's true they did. They also designed the app in a way that requires very little server infrastructure compared to other chat apps, especially in the per-acquisition days. For example, they didn't store contacts/images/messages server-side as you see in Telegram, Google ChatAppOfTheWeek, FB messenger, Twitter, IG, etc. All the infrastructure and the folks required to develop and maintain it, simply didn't exist. Similar with the limited amount of data collection they did at the time -- if you don't log it you there is no reason to have a team of people to analyze it. If you don't have ads you don't need an ad sales team. Etc.
- phyrex 4y agoScale matters