How Jan Koum Steered WhatsApp Into $16B Facebook Deal 136
First time accepted submitter paulbes writes "Jan Koum picked a meaningful spot to sign the $19 billion deal to sell his company WhatsApp to Facebook [Wednesday]. Koum, cofounder Brian Acton and venture capitalist Jim Goetz of Sequoia drove a few blocks from WhatsApp's discreet headquarters in Mountain View to a disused white building across the railroad tracks, the former North County Social Services office where Koum, 37, once stood in line to collect food stamps. That's where the three of them inked the agreement to sell their messaging phenom –which brought in a minuscule $20 million in revenue last year — to the world's largest social network." Forbes overstates the apparent selling price by a few billion dollars; big numbers, either way. [Update: 02/20 13:51 GMT by T : The $19 billion makes sense, if you include retention bonuses in the form of restricted stock units.] Another reader points out the interesting fact that "Acton — himself a former Apple engineer — applied for jobs at both Twitter and Facebook way before WhatsApp became a wildly popular mobile app. Both times he was rejected."
I hear that (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's Pets.com all over again (Score:5, Funny)
"HaHa! Now I have the only one!" (only in Danish).
Strange. Why would he have spoken Danish?
He didn't want the Dutch to know he was gloating!
Re:And then posted .. (Score:4, Funny)
However, I think the keyword there is "global"; it seems to be pretty prevalent in non-Western countries from what I can gather.
Yes, it's the David Hasselhoff of messaging apps