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Immediately after striking Facebook-WattsApp deal, Koum had mentioned in one of his tweets that users' privacy and security is their top concern and I hope he s
by koosa 13y ago
Immediately after striking Facebook-WattsApp deal, Koum had mentioned in one of his tweets that users' privacy and security is their top concern and I hope he sticks to his guns.
- antr 13y agoHe just sold WhatsApp to a company that he has no control over. His word is no good over this decision.
- amirmc 13y agoHe's joining the Board of Directors, so he does have much more control than most.
- enscr 13y agoSure he'll get a chair but that's where it stops. FB, the company is about targeted advertisements based on your profile, activity etc. There's no reason why they won't do that with Whatsapp. They have most definitely not paid $19 billion to get only 99 cent revenue every year. They perhaps are eyeing for much more per user.
- jp555 13y agoWith over 400 million active monthly users, that would be much closer to $399,000,000 than $0.99 every year. WhatsApp has nearly twice the active users as Twitter, and many more than Skype, LinkedIn, Instagram, and even Angry Birds. Not only that, WhatsApp has a user:employee ratio of over 8,000,000:1. That is quite remarkable, over 8x the users per employee than Youtube. There is much more value in WhatsApp for FB than just eyeballs.
- sirkneeland 13y agoOne element of corporate strategy is that there is strategic value not simply in having [acquired company X] but also having kept it out of competitors' hands. Facebook owning it means Google, Apple, Microsoft etc don't. Facebook likes that.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- enscr 13y agoYes, but any capable company would use them after buying them.
- antr 13y agoWouldn't that be, to some extent, a conflict of interest? Given that the other shareholders who have paid for WhatsApp want to get a return on their investment, the Board Member who has benefited from the sale is blocking existing shareholders from benefiting from such acquisition. Lets remember that as a board member he has a fiduciary duty to FBs shareholders, and that means making sound ($) decisions.
- sirkneeland 13y agoWell Jan could argue that it would cause a user exodus which would then reduce the value of WhatsApp (thus facebook) more than the added revenue would increase it. I'm not saying that he would. Or that he could convince enough of the Board that this is the case. But he could.
- antr 13y agoThat is a good argument. I guess all of this depends on the numbers. What's better in absolute terms?: Exodus of users with immediate positive ROI or user privacy with potential $ in the future. Lets see how it pans out.
- nyrina 13y agoHe wouldn't exactly go out and tell people he just sold all their messages and address books, though, would he? The message he wrote, was a message he had to write to keep customers using WhatsApp
- dhimes 13y agoIndeed. They may negotiate some privacy agreement in the sale (that is, fb and the feds), but that agreement will likely expire in due course, as it becomes a 'burden' to the business.
- Eye_of_Mordor 13y agoHe wouldn't have sold to Facebook if users' privacy and security was his top concern. Money was likely his top concern.