Exclusive: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton Gives The Inside Story On #DeleteFacebook And Why He Left $850 Million Behind
www.forbes.com
Facebook’s $22 billion WhatsApp purchase made Brian Acton one of the richest people in America. But his idealism clashed with Mark Zuckerberg’s financial juggernaut. For the first time, Acton explains why he left.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/35648744

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.

      • Ulrich@feddit.orgEnglish
        7·
        23 hours ago

        I don’t know what that has to do with my question but there’s no way that $850M can do more good than simply not selling the shit to Facebook. WhatsApp has become a global communication platform. Half the people on the fucking planet are using it on a regular basis.

        • eldavi@lemmy.mlEnglish
          3·
          20 hours ago

          i was agreeing that walking away wasn’t the best way to handle it.

          • Ulrich@feddit.orgEnglish
            1·
            19 hours ago

            I wasn’t talking about walking away, I was talking about getting in bed with them in the first place.

                • eldavi@lemmy.mlEnglish
                  41·
                  19 hours ago

                  the ai summary led me to believe whatsapp was incorporated; it looks more like it was seller’s remorse:

                  The past tense and wistfulness hang in the air. More than four years ago, Acton and his cofounder, Jan Koum, sold WhatsApp, which had relatively insignificant revenue, to Facebook for $22 billion, one of the most stunning acquisitions of the century. Ten months ago he left Facebook, saying he wanted to focus on a nonprofit. Then in March, as details of the Cambridge Analytica scandal oozed out, he sent a Tweet that quickly went viral and shocked his former employers, who had made him a billionaire many times over: “It is time. #deletefacebook.” No explanation followed. He hasn’t sent another Tweet since.