10 ms·

Jan Koum promoting WhatsApp in the Flyertalk forum (2009)

126 points by takinola 13y ago

tyho 13y ago
He has some IM profiles listed on his flyertalk profile: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/members/jkb76.html http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/members/jkb76.html Hasn't gotten round to adding whatsapp yet!
- Bootvis 13y ago
  But he can buy a Porsche now :)
- gojomo 13y ago
  Since having a WhatsApp contact is equivalent to sharing a mobile phone number, that makes a certain amount of sense. It's intentionally more intimate.
w1ntermute 13y ago
A post by him from after the deal was signed: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/22387891-post72.html http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/22387891-post72.html
- quickpost 13y ago
  I can't imagine a more humble and down to earth newly minted billionaire. What a cool guy.
  - Nux 13y ago
    Money don't spoil a person right away, it takes time. ;-)
    - alaskamiller 13y ago
      Money doesn't spoil, money reveals.
      - w1ntermute 13y ago
        Yeah, in the case of billg, he turned out to be a great person.
- ajju 13y ago
  Jan Koum seems like a genuinely nice guy. I am glad he is tech's most visible billionaire this boom cycle.
  - christinac 13y ago
    very much agreed.
  - oldyahoo 13y ago
    (Created a throwaway account just to post this) When he was at Yahoo, he was considered a bit of dick by the way he parked his shiny BMW M5; he would take two spots, and then argue with people who complained. Parking at Yahoo's Sunnyvale campus is a bit tight, so seeing him park like that rubbed people the wrong way; and despite being called out on it, his attitude was "so, what are you gonna do about it? I'll park as I see fit". Go to Flickr and look up "ycantpark" tag from those days. Just offering another data point thats all.
    - stfu 13y ago
      Makes him sympathetic to me. Arguing with "but you can't park over the line" people is always entertaining. Its some form of real life trolling. Almost like walking across red lights and smiling at the faces on the other side of the road.
      - GuiA 13y ago
        > Makes him sympathetic to me. Arguing with "but you can't park over the line" people is always entertaining. Its some form of real life trolling. Almost like walking across red lights and smiling at the faces on the other side of the road. Yes I love doing troll things too like playing music really loud at 4am, blocking my neighbor's driveway and blocking the stairs when my elderly neighbor comes back from grocery shopping. So entertaining.
    - tlrobinson 13y ago
      Wow, is this common at other companies, or are Yahoo employees particularly bad at parking?
gberger 13y ago
It's interesting to see that he promotes the app by mentioning the status feature, which is rarely used nowadays (at least in my experience).
- SifJar 13y ago
  Back then, that's all it had. At the start, you could update your current status and see all your contacts' statuses. When iOS added push notifications, it got updated so you could get notifications of friends' status updates without opening the app. It wasn't until version 2.0 (at least a couple of months after the forum post linked here) that the messaging functionality was added.
  - kelnos 13y ago
    Ah, I always thought "WhatsApp" was a weird name for a messaging app. Makes sense that the first version was just a status-update-sharer, a "what's up?" app. Nice.
jjoe 13y ago
Big things start small like a post in a forum.
shimon_e 13y ago
The best deal on FlyerTalk, by far!
bredren 13y ago
Funny to see this. Posting to subject area forums (particularly communities using the familiar vBulletin) to gain your first 100 users, is a great way to get started. Posted this suggestion to the first 100 users thread recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7250358 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7250358
rdl 13y ago
Flyertalk is basically everything that was ever good about HN, Reddit, Slashdot, without the negatives. I don't understand how it has remained so awesome for so long.
- saryant 13y ago
  FT has a huge and very strong mod team. Anything off-topic gets killed or moved to Omni pretty fast. Some of the individual forums are more heavily modded than others (United Airlines forum compared to Travelbuzz). Flyertalkers also talk in code. "(23 Feb) UA 574 ord to ewr upgraded to 767 3 class" is a pretty typical thread title. The barrier to joining the conversation is high. That's nothing to compared to this gem from the trick-it thread (up to 31,000 posts): > Were you guys aware that you can FD half by C1-C2 via northern star and then returning on the neutral longhorns that are the wholly owned sub of the airline named after me? Just discovered that today by accident. Pretty cool at times.
  - jcdavis 13y ago
    The trick it folks intentionally talk in vague terms to avoid anything being spread around. Most of the easy FD deals have been killed over the last few years because of this. The time/value tradeoff for those is now above my threshhold, but back in 2009 when they were much easier I flew SFO-SYD for ~$570.

126 points by takinola 13y ago

tyho 13y ago

He has some IM profiles listed on his flyertalk profile: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/members/jkb76.html http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/members/jkb76.html Hasn't gotten round to adding whatsapp yet!

Bootvis 13y ago
But he can buy a Porsche now :)
gojomo 13y ago
Since having a WhatsApp contact is equivalent to sharing a mobile phone number, that makes a certain amount of sense. It's intentionally more intimate.

w1ntermute 13y ago

A post by him from after the deal was signed: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/22387891-post72.html http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/22387891-post72.html

quickpost 13y ago
I can't imagine a more humble and down to earth newly minted billionaire. What a cool guy.
- Nux 13y ago
  Money don't spoil a person right away, it takes time. ;-)
  - alaskamiller 13y ago
    Money doesn't spoil, money reveals.
    - w1ntermute 13y ago
      Yeah, in the case of billg, he turned out to be a great person.
ajju 13y ago
Jan Koum seems like a genuinely nice guy. I am glad he is tech's most visible billionaire this boom cycle.
- christinac 13y ago
  very much agreed.
- oldyahoo 13y ago
  (Created a throwaway account just to post this) When he was at Yahoo, he was considered a bit of dick by the way he parked his shiny BMW M5; he would take two spots, and then argue with people who complained. Parking at Yahoo's Sunnyvale campus is a bit tight, so seeing him park like that rubbed people the wrong way; and despite being called out on it, his attitude was "so, what are you gonna do about it? I'll park as I see fit". Go to Flickr and look up "ycantpark" tag from those days. Just offering another data point thats all.
  - stfu 13y ago
    Makes him sympathetic to me. Arguing with "but you can't park over the line" people is always entertaining. Its some form of real life trolling. Almost like walking across red lights and smiling at the faces on the other side of the road.
    - GuiA 13y ago
      > Makes him sympathetic to me. Arguing with "but you can't park over the line" people is always entertaining. Its some form of real life trolling. Almost like walking across red lights and smiling at the faces on the other side of the road. Yes I love doing troll things too like playing music really loud at 4am, blocking my neighbor's driveway and blocking the stairs when my elderly neighbor comes back from grocery shopping. So entertaining.
  - tlrobinson 13y ago
    Wow, is this common at other companies, or are Yahoo employees particularly bad at parking?

gberger 13y ago

It's interesting to see that he promotes the app by mentioning the status feature, which is rarely used nowadays (at least in my experience).

SifJar 13y ago
Back then, that's all it had. At the start, you could update your current status and see all your contacts' statuses. When iOS added push notifications, it got updated so you could get notifications of friends' status updates without opening the app. It wasn't until version 2.0 (at least a couple of months after the forum post linked here) that the messaging functionality was added.
- kelnos 13y ago
  Ah, I always thought "WhatsApp" was a weird name for a messaging app. Makes sense that the first version was just a status-update-sharer, a "what's up?" app. Nice.

jjoe 13y ago

Big things start small like a post in a forum.

shimon_e 13y ago

The best deal on FlyerTalk, by far!

bredren 13y ago

Funny to see this. Posting to subject area forums (particularly communities using the familiar vBulletin) to gain your first 100 users, is a great way to get started. Posted this suggestion to the first 100 users thread recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7250358 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7250358

rdl 13y ago

Flyertalk is basically everything that was ever good about HN, Reddit, Slashdot, without the negatives. I don't understand how it has remained so awesome for so long.

saryant 13y ago
FT has a huge and very strong mod team. Anything off-topic gets killed or moved to Omni pretty fast. Some of the individual forums are more heavily modded than others (United Airlines forum compared to Travelbuzz). Flyertalkers also talk in code. "(23 Feb) UA 574 ord to ewr upgraded to 767 3 class" is a pretty typical thread title. The barrier to joining the conversation is high. That's nothing to compared to this gem from the trick-it thread (up to 31,000 posts): > Were you guys aware that you can FD half by C1-C2 via northern star and then returning on the neutral longhorns that are the wholly owned sub of the airline named after me? Just discovered that today by accident. Pretty cool at times.
- jcdavis 13y ago
  The trick it folks intentionally talk in vague terms to avoid anything being spread around. Most of the easy FD deals have been killed over the last few years because of this. The time/value tradeoff for those is now above my threshhold, but back in 2009 when they were much easier I flew SFO-SYD for ~$570.