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'I Sold My Users' Privacy To a Larger Benefit. I Made a Choice and a Compromise. And I Live With That Every Day': WhatsApp Cofounder On Leaving Facebook (forbes.com)
Brian Acton, a founder of WhatsApp, which he (along with the other founder) sold to Facebook for $19 billion four years ago, has grown tired of the social juggernaut. He left the company a year ago, and earlier this year, he surprised many when he tweeted "#DeleteFacebook", offering his support to what many described as a movement. He had started despising working at Facebook so much, that he left the company abruptly, leaving a cool $850M in unvested stock. He has also invested $50 million in encrypted chat app Signal. In an interview with Forbes, published Wednesday, Acton talked about his rationale behind leaving the company and what he thinks of Facebook now. From the story: Under pressure from Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg to monetize WhatsApp, he pushed back as Facebook questioned the encryption he'd helped build and laid the groundwork to show targeted ads and facilitate commercial messaging. Acton also walked away from Facebook a year before his final tranche of stock grants vested. "It was like, okay, well, you want to do these things I don't want to do," Acton says. "It's better if I get out of your way. And I did." It was perhaps the most expensive moral stand in history. Acton took a screenshot of the stock price on his way out the door -- the decision cost him $850 million.
He's following a similar moral code now. He clearly doesn't relish the spotlight this story will bring and is quick to underscore that Facebook "isn't the bad guy." ("I think of them as just very good businesspeople.") But he paid dearly for the right to speak his mind. "As part of a proposed settlement at the end, [Facebook management] tried to put a nondisclosure agreement in place," Acton says. "That was part of the reason that I got sort of cold feet in terms of trying to settle with these guys."
It's also a story any idealistic entrepreneur can identify with: What happens when you build something incredible and then sell it to someone with far different plans for your baby? "At the end of the day, I sold my company," Acton says. "I sold my users' privacy to a larger benefit. I made a choice and a compromise. And I live with that every day."
Facebook, Acton says, had decided to pursue two ways of making money from WhatsApp. First, by showing targeted ads in WhatsApp's new Status feature, which Acton felt broke a social compact with its users. "Targeted advertising is what makes me unhappy," he says. His motto at WhatsApp had been "No ads, no games, no gimmicks" -- a direct contrast with a parent company that derived 98% of its revenue from advertising. Another motto had been "Take the time to get it right," a stark contrast to "Move fast and break things." Elsewhere in the story, Acton has also suggested he was used by Facebook to help get its 2014 acquisition of WhatsApp past EU regulators that had been concerned it might be able to link accounts -- as it subsequently did.
Update: Facebook Executive Hits Back at WhatsApp Co-founder Brian Acton: 'A Whole New Standard of Low-Class'.
He's following a similar moral code now. He clearly doesn't relish the spotlight this story will bring and is quick to underscore that Facebook "isn't the bad guy." ("I think of them as just very good businesspeople.") But he paid dearly for the right to speak his mind. "As part of a proposed settlement at the end, [Facebook management] tried to put a nondisclosure agreement in place," Acton says. "That was part of the reason that I got sort of cold feet in terms of trying to settle with these guys."
It's also a story any idealistic entrepreneur can identify with: What happens when you build something incredible and then sell it to someone with far different plans for your baby? "At the end of the day, I sold my company," Acton says. "I sold my users' privacy to a larger benefit. I made a choice and a compromise. And I live with that every day."
Facebook, Acton says, had decided to pursue two ways of making money from WhatsApp. First, by showing targeted ads in WhatsApp's new Status feature, which Acton felt broke a social compact with its users. "Targeted advertising is what makes me unhappy," he says. His motto at WhatsApp had been "No ads, no games, no gimmicks" -- a direct contrast with a parent company that derived 98% of its revenue from advertising. Another motto had been "Take the time to get it right," a stark contrast to "Move fast and break things." Elsewhere in the story, Acton has also suggested he was used by Facebook to help get its 2014 acquisition of WhatsApp past EU regulators that had been concerned it might be able to link accounts -- as it subsequently did.
Update: Facebook Executive Hits Back at WhatsApp Co-founder Brian Acton: 'A Whole New Standard of Low-Class'.
I feel sorry for him. He only made $19 billion instead of $19.85 billion.
on his giant pile of money
What makes up the other 2%, if not from ads?
And that larger benefit was your own wealth? Shareholder value?
It sure as hell wasn't a 'larger benefit' for the users, and it never was going to be.
Good, he showed some balls and walked away from some money. But he did all of this after selling out to a company who was never going to respect user's privacy, and from which sale he benefited hugely.
Not really buying the contrition here.
I know what happens when you sell yourself. The huge tech companies are the worse possible scenario for someone like that. But he got paid. Now my advice would be "build something else and don't get stupid this time." Good luck, man. Godspeed. Keep building.
Do you feel THAT bad about it?
Oh. Sorry. Carry on with your sudden burst of moral preening from the comfort of your ivory tower.
and read it as Wasp app and do a double take??
Someone impresses me! He gave up 850M for a principle. I have to give the man his due respect.
So how was he planning to make money from WhatsApp?
... but not bad enough to do anything that's not symbolic. Like most CEOs, the guy has no moral compass.
That is all.
was going to come from? If the users don't pay, their privacy will. Until someone figures out a biz model that actually makes the users customers instead of the product, this will continue.
Buy low, sell high.
Which is taller, the moral high ground he claims to take now or the pile of money he sold out for then?
It's pretty amazing how comfortable a bed 19 billion will buy you. That and pillows full of money.
Foolish to leave all that money for them when it could have been used to support the causes and efforts of projects he supports.
I would have taken all I could so I had the largest pool of resources possible to fight back against what I was taking a stand against.
A cooler head should have prevailed but I guess its not my place to judge his rationale.
Money is wasted on the Successful workaholics.
Seriously, give me a few million in the bank to return about $100K of income and I'm retired and traveling.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
The guy gave up 0.8 billion to get away from them.
Much easier than that if you don't work there.
Gee, when I sold my body who knew the johns would want Sex ?
I thought they just gave me the 19 bill because they thought I was cool !
And you can't do anything about anything, anyway.
Defaetists like you make me angry. If you can't do anything, why not curl up and die? Just insulting others as "SJW" is just pitiful displacement activity (look it up).
Coulda.
Shoulda.
But not woulda.
What did he think was going to happen? Of course Facebook was going to do these things. What planet is he from? Victim Centari?
Facebook is just one of many sites providing a free service that really is not free. You as the beneficiary of the service provide something of value either with visits and ads that target you or a site that follows you around like Facebook as well as has plenty information on you and all your friends. Yeah it is a compromise but that means the user completely understands what that compromise is. It also means a set of standards for privacy and not make it up as you go.
Most of the people in this world will never make 10% of that $850 million in their life times. Here he is sitting on $19 billion after losing $850 million. All that money can't buy me a violin small enough to play for him for this.
Standard human behavior. Apologize after the fact. Not that I think this guy is bad in any way. He's a normal dude responding to incentives. Capitalist system, eat what you kill, blah blah blah. This is the way it works. At this point, user data is valuable and ads are valuable. Any who can accumulate what's currently valuable and sell it at a high price, does exactly this. It's also human behavior to find your humanity AFTER you've taken care of business.
Actually, there's one other lesson here. This is one of the most "normal" human reactions he could have taken. This is just a normal guy, with the usual human flaws, who happens to be sitting on 19 billion dollars.
Most of these high flyers and successful tech people bill themselves as geniuses. Not the case. They took business risks and got lucky to be in the right place and the right time. At the end of the day, these are normals who gambled and won. It wasn't destiny and it wasn't because of their special visionary genius. For every one of them, there are about 100,000 similarly smart, energetic businesspeople who took a similar visionary gamble and lost.
I never had a FB account.
When those I knew were hot about it around 2009, I decided not to join because of its "keeping up with Joneses" and fake "happy sunshine" vibe. I could see how people were creating this unreal facade of themselves and it really irritated me.
From 2009 to around 2014 People were astonished I didn't have an account.
Another reason I didn't have one was because I saw how much strife was there. I would hear stories from friends/relatives about the arguments and drama, whether political or personal. I would look around on peoples accounts and I saw how the nutty political side was coming out.
Again, people couldn't understand why I didn't have an account on FB.
Then I started noticing that many organizations of all stripes were migrating away from email logins to FB logins, which to me was reprehensible. FB was taking over the online sphere of influence and that irritated me greatly.
Again, people couldn't understand why I didn't have an account on FB.
Then I heard about all the privacy implications, and the underhanded shit FB was doing with user data. The shadow accounts, etc. Yes, I'm sure FB has a nice, juicy dossier on me as well.
Again, people couldn't understand why I didn't have an account on FB.
Then I started hearing from Gen Z that FB was for older peeps, and that they were using other platforms. I also heard they didn't like the underhanded shit FB was doing, which surprised me.
Still, people couldn't understand why I didn't have an account on FB.
Then during and after the election of Trump the shit hit the fan with how slimy FB really was.
So by 2017, people were no longer surprised that I didn't have an account.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Look, I get that the /. crowd is rather jaded and cynical concerning the digital world. I am the same myself.
But the signal foundation is a nonprofit founded together with Moxie Marlinspike. You have to be a very cynical person to not like Moxie('s work) if you are a freedom loving person.
*Anybody* (1) who pours 50 fucking million dollari into the Signal foundation gets to feel good about that and brag about it too. I don't care if he could have given more. I don't care that he's still rich. 50 million into a nonprofit can do a *lot* of work which is dearly needed.
(1) Ok, maybe not Mark Zuckerberg.
Come on. He didn't know how Facefuck worked before the deal? He didn't see the writing on the wall of what Facefuck wanted to ? Of course they were going to sell ads.
Writes Software, has little common sense.
Is the real reason we can't have "nice things".
I don't have FB and never signed up for it as I have clearly understood its business model. However, I can't force others into making good choices. Making shitty choices that have long-term consequences is a fundamental freedom in any civilized society.
All "moral" after selling out for NINETEEN BILLION. These are the kind of people, once they reach this "status" that: Attend all the high price social events, travel in private planes, have gated home(s), huge security, have a staff to wipe their butts and on and on that say that we need to "give this or that" to the citizens bla bla bla. If he's so worried about anything, donate your money to the IRS to help bring down the debt. Another rich smug liberal who now thinks he has a moral compass.
The guilt that torments him is in truly homeopathic amounts in ratio to that sea of money. It's roughly equivalent to the guilt I feel when I'm not sure if something is recyclable and it doesn't say on the package, so I throw it in the trash rather than check on Google.
You mentioned going over a moral cliff. In my own experience, I tend to slide down a slope more often than I jump off a cliff.
Years ago, I was a serving as a middle-man of sorts collecting money daily on behalf of someone, and about once per month I'd send it to him. Sometimes it was two months in between - he wasn't worried about exactly how often it was sent. He wasn't at all tight on cash, so he didn't care if it was four weeks between payments or six weeks. One day I had to pay my payroll two days before my own funds became available. So in order to pay my employees on time, I borrowed from the "middle man" money for 48 hours. He didn't know or care. It helped my employees, who needed tonoay their bills on time, and nobody was hurt. But it wasn't the right thing to do.
The problem was once I borrowed money that wasn't mine, even though it didn't hurt anyone, and even for just 48 hours, that's a slippery slope.
In this instance, Facebook promised to not map user data from WhatsApp users. They probably made other promises to out his mind at ease. That plus a huge pile of money could be very tempting indeed.
If there's anything I've learned with over 25 years using the Internet is that any time ANYTHING comes out. The obnoxious phenomena known as ads will ALWAYS rear its ugly head.
There is only so much anything new can "not have ads" before it's infested with ads.
Some examples: YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat (HUGE HUGE HUGE one, with the update that everyone hated), Amazon Instant Video, Netflix, etc.
Another rich smug liberal who now thinks he has a moral compass.
As opposed to the rich smug conservatives who don't have one?
I don't know anything about this guy, or really any billionaire. I would imagine that much money would change a lot of what you do, and might even change who you are as a person. Maybe it depends on if you made it yourself over a long period of time, a relatively short period, if you inherited it, or have a trust fund you were born into. But I think there are billionaires of all types, and their opinion of things is really no different to me than anyone else's. Especially people who turn everything into an opportunity to insult those who don't believe what they themselves believe.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Now Facebook can show extra $850 million in profit. Under GAAP, stock based compensations are counted as expenses, so this directly translates to profit.
Someone should shoot that guy so we get some peace from his whining.
$1 per user/year and 1.5m users - wouldn't even pay for 10 active developers.
You barely NEED 10 active developers for something like Whatsapp and Twitter. The fact that they have hundreds (thousands in the case of the latter) only shows how ridiculous companies become when they start swimming in money.
$1 per user/year and 1.5m users - wouldn't even pay for 10 active developers.
When sold, WhatsApp only had 55 employees:
* http://theconversation.com/whatsapp-bought-for-19-billion-what-do-its-employees-get-23496
* https://www.wired.com/2015/09/whatsapp-serves-900-million-users-50-engineers/
They had 900M users at sale; though I'm not sure how many were paying, they had US$ 1.289B in revenues:
* https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/040915/how-whatsapp-makes-money.asp
Another rich smug liberal who now thinks he has a moral compass.
As opposed to the rich smug conservatives who don't have one?
The "rich smug conservatives" certainly have a compass, it's just that you may not like where it's pointing:
* https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/07/the-architect-of-the-radical-right/528672/
* https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/meet-the-economist-behind-the-one-percents-stealth-takeover-of-america
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_MacLean
Say whatever ever else you want about Charles Koch, he knows where he wants to take the country, and he's laying things out over decades to get it there (relatively successfully too).
Brian Acton, a founder of WhatsApp, which he (along with the other founder) sold to Facebook for $19 billion four years ago, has grown tired of the social juggernaut. He left the company a year ago, and earlier this year, he surprised many when he tweeted "#DeleteFacebook", offering his support to what many described as a movement.
All good and well after he got his $19B. Will he be donating that to charity?
... would have been to not take the deal in the first place.
Until he backs up those words by donating his blood money, there's only remorse, not a stand.
I would keep the money, and be a remorseful billionaire.
But cut with the 'taking a stand' hypocrisy. He needs to STFU.
The slippery slope fallacy is assuming a slippery slope *when there isn't one*.
In my experience, once I "borrow" a dollar without permission, it becomes easier to later "borrow" $5, then later $20. For me at least, there is a bit of a binary choice between "I'm not a thief, period" and "well sometimes I kinda ...". So there actually IS a slippery slope. It's not a fallacy to recognize a slippery slope that is actually there.
I didn't have one was because I saw how much strife was there. I would hear stories from friends/relatives about the arguments and drama, whether political or personal. I would look around on peoples accounts and I saw how the nutty political side was coming out.
Again, people couldn't understand why I didn't have an account on FB.
Then I started noticing that many organizations of all stripes were migrating away from email logins to FB logins, which to me was reprehensible. FB was taking over the online sphere of influence and that irritated me greatly.
Again, people couldn't understand why I didn't have an account on FB.
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For a few billion, id sell my mother.
Love it how people suddenly 'see the light', right after they can afford to...
You seem to be using a different definition than I am for "slippery slope".
The Oxford Dictionary defines "slippery" as "difficult to hold on to" (not impossible), and "slippery slope" as "one action likely to lead to another" (not guaranteed).
https://en.oxforddictionaries....
It would be error to assume that something WILL happen because it is MORE LIKELY to happen.
It would also be error to ignore something that increases the probability of a bad outcome, only because it doesn't GUARANTEE a bad outcome.
and then sell it to someone with far different plans for your baby?
"No ads, no games, no gimmicks"
Did he not know he was selling to Facebook???
Bunch of mothercrappers.
Annoy me enough and I simply leave these tools. As I already did with Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin, 3 and half years ago, and I don't miss a thing about any of them.