Exclusive: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton Gives The Inside Story On #DeleteFacebook And Why He Left $850 Million Behind
www.forbes.comcross-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.
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That’s great but…what did he think was going to happen?
he could have done a lot more good with $850million
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.
i was agreeing that walking away wasn’t the best way to handle it.
I wasn’t talking about walking away, I was talking about getting in bed with them in the first place.
they bought whatsapp; he didn’t have a choice.
…he owned WhatsApp. It was entirely his choice.
the ai summary led me to believe whatsapp was incorporated; it looks more like it was seller’s remorse:
It was a more naive time