TE
科技回声
首页24小时热榜最新最佳问答展示工作
GitHubTwitter
首页

科技回声

基于 Next.js 构建的科技新闻平台,提供全球科技新闻和讨论内容。

GitHubTwitter

首页

首页最新最佳问答展示工作

资源链接

HackerNews API原版 HackerNewsNext.js

© 2025 科技回声. 版权所有。

Facebook Buying WhatsApp for $16B in Cash and Stock Plus $3B in RSUs

1129 点作者 vassvdm超过 11 年前

155 条评论

nwh超过 11 年前
<p><pre><code> 400,000,000 active users [0] 16,000,000,000 USD ---- $40 per user </code></pre> That&#x27;s an incredible cost. We can assume Facebook is paying for the userbase, the app itself and it&#x27;s infrastructure would basically run itself. It&#x27;s less appealing when you realise that there&#x27;s probably a miniscule fraction of WhatsApp users that don&#x27;t have a Facebook account.<p>&gt; <i>WhatsApp will remain autonomous and operate independently. You can continue to enjoy the service for a nominal fee</i><p>Now it makes even less sense.<p>[0]: <a href="http://blog.whatsapp.com/index.php/2013/12/400-million-stories/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.whatsapp.com&#x2F;index.php&#x2F;2013&#x2F;12&#x2F;400-million-stori...</a>
评论 #7266925 未加载
评论 #7267037 未加载
评论 #7267073 未加载
评论 #7267829 未加载
评论 #7268587 未加载
评论 #7267041 未加载
评论 #7268461 未加载
评论 #7266920 未加载
评论 #7266834 未加载
评论 #7267376 未加载
评论 #7266951 未加载
评论 #7267050 未加载
评论 #7267055 未加载
评论 #7267816 未加载
评论 #7269636 未加载
评论 #7266836 未加载
评论 #7267171 未加载
评论 #7271187 未加载
评论 #7267347 未加载
评论 #7267312 未加载
评论 #7268795 未加载
评论 #7267517 未加载
评论 #7268548 未加载
评论 #7270383 未加载
评论 #7267284 未加载
评论 #7281700 未加载
评论 #7267827 未加载
评论 #7269976 未加载
评论 #7269301 未加载
评论 #7268201 未加载
评论 #7267756 未加载
评论 #7267034 未加载
评论 #7267883 未加载
评论 #7269613 未加载
评论 #7267013 未加载
评论 #7267600 未加载
评论 #7270864 未加载
评论 #7267694 未加载
评论 #7266799 未加载
评论 #7269187 未加载
tomblomfield超过 11 年前
Sequoia just landed a 5x return on their fund with this one deal.<p>At a rough guess, they put in $8m for 15% of the company in 2011, valuing it at around $53m.<p>A $16B sale is a 300x increase in value, so Sequoia&#x27;s stake is worth $2.4bn. Their standard fund size is around $500m.<p><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/16/us-sequoia-funds-idUSBRE97F0WW20130816" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reuters.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;2013&#x2F;08&#x2F;16&#x2F;us-sequoia-funds-i...</a>
评论 #7267692 未加载
评论 #7267700 未加载
评论 #7267121 未加载
评论 #7268477 未加载
评论 #7267127 未加载
primitivesuave超过 11 年前
My uncle in India runs a construction company, and literally every single aspect of company communication is done over WhatsApp. Each construction site has to constantly post pictures on WhatsApp, and basically all management and payroll decisions are made through WhatsApp discussions. Apparently this is not an uncommon practice, as businesses that were once administered by pen and paper are now using WhatsApp to improve efficiency and reach new customers.
评论 #7267186 未加载
评论 #7268138 未加载
评论 #7267618 未加载
评论 #7267530 未加载
评论 #7268722 未加载
评论 #7268964 未加载
staunch超过 11 年前
Damn, Zuck is <i>far</i> more paranoid than I thought. He&#x27;s going to have to come up with a better strategy than buying every company that presents a potential existential threat though. Especially at these prices!<p>I actually think it wasn&#x27;t such a bad idea to buy Instagram. He paid 1% for something that <i>really</i> could have killed him. But paying $16 billion here is pretty much surrender as far as I&#x27;m concerned.
评论 #7267445 未加载
评论 #7267167 未加载
评论 #7267487 未加载
评论 #7267848 未加载
josh2600超过 11 年前
For everyone saying this is a waste of money, consider the commentary around Instagram at $1B. Basically the world said that this was a horrible acquisition at the time, but in retrospect, buying Instagram was quite cheap. Buying your closest competitor for less than 15% of your market cap is usually a good idea.<p>Fast forward to today. What&#x27;sapp is the dominant messaging application across the world. Carriers hate it but they can&#x27;t do anything to stop it. Facebook hates it and no matter how much they improve facebook messenger, they keep falling behind.<p>This represents a massive existential threat to Facebook&#x27;s business: engagement. To kill their closest competitor for, again, less than 15% of the company, is a rational decision.<p>Since Viber and What&#x27;sapp have both exited the market, I think it&#x27;s time for someone to build a new messaging app. There&#x27;s a lot of room in a once incredibly crowded space.
评论 #7267052 未加载
评论 #7266956 未加载
评论 #7267659 未加载
评论 #7268255 未加载
评论 #7267143 未加载
评论 #7270175 未加载
评论 #7267619 未加载
评论 #7267346 未加载
评论 #7266973 未加载
bedhead超过 11 年前
When these bubbles really get crazy, you start questioning your sanity and wondering whether maybe you&#x27;re just plain wrong. You actually start wondering if the valuations are justified after all, whether it be a house, stock certificate of a tech company, the mineral rights to some acres in the Haynesville shale, or some land on the Vegas Strip. My head hurts.
评论 #7267921 未加载
评论 #7267457 未加载
评论 #7267805 未加载
notlisted超过 11 年前
I know What&#x27;s Up. Facebook just bought the world&#x27;s largest (and unlisted) mobile phone number directory:<p>WhatsApp&#x27;s convenient &#x27;matching by phone number&#x27; feature uploads of all of your phone contacts to their servers. Though positioned as one of the good guys, they too had their price.<p>With this acquisition, FB bought the ultimate data set of users and leads, and with it secured access to the last remnants of your privacy.<p>Your fake name&#x2F;profile on FB will no longer protect you. Your friend&#x27;s contact list spilled the beans months ago...<p>Uninstalling WhatsApp now, though I realize that after several lovely years might just be too late already.<p>Cat, bag, out of. Such wow. Much sad.
评论 #7269241 未加载
评论 #7275826 未加载
argumentum超过 11 年前
To everyone calling this symptomatic of a &quot;bubble&quot;, remember that WhatsApp was <i>not</i> hyped like SnapChat or Instagram. It wasn&#x27;t associated with &quot;sexting&quot; or plugged by Celebrities. A few years ago, my cousin arrived from India to start undergrad here .. when picking out her new smartphone, here was only one requirement: it <i>had to</i> run WhatsApp. She didn&#x27;t care whether it was an iPhone, android or blackberry (back when bb&#x27;s were a thing). She didn&#x27;t care about the camera or processor speed. Her decision was based on a measly little app that I&#x27;d never heard of. WhatsApp just made something people wanted, <i>badly</i>.<p>It&#x27;s even profitable, for crying out loud.<p>Whether this is a good decision and price for Facebook is to be determined. Many thought Google overpaid for Youtube and FB overpaid for Instagram, and look how those turned out. In addition Zuckerberg likely thought that much like losing image sharing, losing messaging would pose an existential threat to Facebook.<p>Zuck&#x27;s strategic track record has been stellar, all the way back to the beginnings of Facebook. The one &quot;mistake&quot; he admitted to (HTML5 vs native) was corrected promptly and thoroughly. I&#x27;m willing to bet he&#x27;s got a much better handle on these things than given credit for. I&#x27;m long on FB and buying on any dips.
评论 #7268700 未加载
评论 #7272113 未加载
huskyr超过 11 年前
Facebook suddenly acquired the world&#x27;s (if we exclude the US and China) most popular messaging service. I communicate with this app with all my friends, and share stuff that i have no intention of ever putting on Facebook. Everything that once seemed &#x27;private&#x27; is now in the hands of a website that forces it users to share as much as possible with marketeers and advertising companies. It&#x27;s gonna be one tough mission for FB to convince WhatsApp users they&#x27;re not gonna be playing around with their data.<p>If there&#x27;s one moment to launch an email-like distributed protocol and app for instant messaging (and somehow convince all my friends to use it), i guess it&#x27;s now.
评论 #7268279 未加载
评论 #7266980 未加载
评论 #7268914 未加载
评论 #7267240 未加载
jljljl超过 11 年前
<a href="http://blog.whatsapp.com/index.php/2012/06/why-we-dont-sell-ads/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.whatsapp.com&#x2F;index.php&#x2F;2012&#x2F;06&#x2F;why-we-dont-sell-...</a>
评论 #7266806 未加载
评论 #7266778 未加载
评论 #7266728 未加载
评论 #7266774 未加载
dhoulb超过 11 年前
I just can&#x27;t get my head around that valuation. For something that&#x27;s basically a feature, when they already have that functionality baked in, built out to a similar scale?<p>It&#x27;s not an acquisition for talent, or technology, so what is it? It&#x27;s an acquisition for investors probably. To argue back against the people who say the kids are leaving FB. Well guess what, we BOUGHT the thing the kids are using. And it&#x27;s &#x27;mobile first&#x27;.<p>They can probably continue to buy the &#x27;cool app of the week&#x27; for the rest of their existence. Probably not at THIS scale, but certainly the $1-2b range. The rest of their user base is pretty solid. As long as they can show their advertisers that they&#x27;re appealing to young people too, it&#x27;s probably a strong plan.<p>They just really screwed up on messaging, and let these guys grow too big before deciding or being in a position to buy them. Doubt they&#x27;ll let it happen again! They&#x27;ll have their eyes open and will snap up ANY new apps that show strong user growth in younger markets.<p>Tech people have a major bee in their bonnet about Facebook. We kinda assume the kids are flocking away for the same reason we are: privacy. But it&#x27;s not. Kids just get bored easily so they like to try new things. Young people aren&#x27;t &#x27;leaving&#x27; Facebook, they&#x27;re just using other stuff alongside it. Facebook just has to provide one or two interesting buzzy distraction apps to last until the kids turn into adults, get jobs, and use Facebook exclusively again because it&#x27;s where everyone is, and they don&#x27;t have time for 15 separate apps any more.
评论 #7267267 未加载
评论 #7268343 未加载
评论 #7267546 未加载
评论 #7268161 未加载
评论 #7267585 未加载
pisarzp超过 11 年前
This is just ridiculous. As per their latest financial statement, $16B is $B more then they have in the bank. Part of that is stock, but still...<p>On top of that, it&#x27;s 8 times more then their 2013 net income!<p>People say it&#x27;s defensive play, but to me it looks like overly aggressive play with huge risk and very little potential. Facebook already has huge market share with their messaging platform, and they really don&#x27;t need this that badly.
评论 #7267635 未加载
NDizzle超过 11 年前
$16B for something I&#x27;ve never even heard of. I feel like I&#x27;m living under a pile of rocks.
评论 #7266771 未加载
评论 #7266773 未加载
评论 #7266961 未加载
评论 #7267484 未加载
评论 #7267916 未加载
评论 #7266746 未加载
gamegoblin超过 11 年前
That is a LOT of money.<p>That being said, I use WhatsApp every day to chat with my friends around the world and it&#x27;s really excellent. I know it&#x27;s used a lot in other parts of the world even more, so I doubt this purchase is focused on US markets. It seems that every one of my Arab friends uses WhatsApp to talk to their families back home (and they use it at home, too). I don&#x27;t know about other regions.
评论 #7266754 未加载
评论 #7267033 未加载
评论 #7268111 未加载
评论 #7266816 未加载
评论 #7268645 未加载
评论 #7266931 未加载
falsestprophet超过 11 年前
Some interesting numbers:<p>WhatsApp raised only $8 million (from Sequoia in 2011 <a href="http://www.crunchbase.com/company/whatsapp" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.crunchbase.com&#x2F;company&#x2F;whatsapp</a>).<p>19B sale price is about 10% of Facebook&#x27;s 173B valuation.<p>At 400 million, WhatsApp has more users than, <i>the world&#x27;s third most populous country</i>, the United States has residents.
评论 #7266794 未加载
评论 #7266709 未加载
评论 #7267228 未加载
评论 #7266704 未加载
shortsightedsid超过 11 年前
This highlights another of Yahoo&#x27;s screwups, IMHO. Whatsapp is built by 2 ex-Yahoo employees. Guess what everyone used in the late 90&#x27;s for messaging? Yahoo Messenger. That&#x27;s right - I used Y! Messenger all the time to keep in touch with friends before Social Networking was the norm and I&#x27;m pretty sure everyone else did too.<p>There is one more company that had the lead in messaging and screwed up - Blackberry. They released their app across platforms, 5 years too late. Had they hit the iPhone&#x2F;Android apps stores 5 years back, they would have been in a better place than Whatsapp. The funny thing is that their co-founder even wanted to do that and not go after BB10 but he got pushed out.<p>I remember reading that whatsapp&#x27;s servers basically run using Erlang. Erlang scales massively, and is a beautiful language for messages&#x2F;telecom etc.. Hopefully, this will trigger some more interest in Erlang.
higherpurpose超过 11 年前
Such a waste. Most Whatsapp users already use Facebook in parallel. Facebook will <i>never</i> see a ROI on this acquisition. Not even close.
评论 #7266688 未加载
评论 #7266670 未加载
评论 #7266736 未加载
评论 #7266742 未加载
评论 #7266755 未加载
评论 #7266691 未加载
评论 #7266734 未加载
评论 #7266695 未加载
评论 #7266710 未加载
pbreit超过 11 年前
I usually don&#x27;t poo-poo acquisitions but this one surprises me for a) the valuation (Facebook really couldn&#x27;t convince them to exit for 5 or 10 billion?) and b) Facebook really needs to demonstrate that it can get into these markets itself.<p>With all the supposed ingenuity, developer talent, money and existing users, why can&#x27;t Facebook build anything besides a news feed?
评论 #7270594 未加载
antirez超过 11 年前
If you have teenager offsprings like me (I&#x27;ve a 13 years old son) you can understand that better maybe. I heard the sentence &quot;We don&#x27;t need Facebook since there is Whatsapp&quot; an endless number of times from him and his friends. From my point of view at first this didn&#x27;t made a lot of sense, I considered Whatsapp a no-cost SMS replacement. The reality is that Groups are a killer feature: my son&#x27;s school class has a group where they share what are the homework for tomorrow, or just send messages that are much alike what you would write on Facebook as status messages. Then I realized that I also created a group for my friends, like, in one group there is me, my wife, and one couple of friends of us where we plan what to do together. In another group there is our family where we share pictures of my daughter. We are using Whatsapp like Facebook as well... Under this point of view this move makes a lot more sense, I believe Whatsapp is eating Facebook traffic.
评论 #7269701 未加载
评论 #7269914 未加载
评论 #7270088 未加载
simplekoala超过 11 年前
It looks like Brian Acton, Whatsapp&#x27;s founder was turned down by Facebook in 2009. What a comeback! This must be even sweeter!<p><a href="https://twitter.com/brianacton/status/3109544383" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;brianacton&#x2F;status&#x2F;3109544383</a>
antr超过 11 年前
I used WhatsApp to stay away from FB&#x27;s chat app. Telegram is picking up popularity within my circles... I&#x27;ll default to that
评论 #7267088 未加载
评论 #7266733 未加载
评论 #7276877 未加载
评论 #7267794 未加载
评论 #7267382 未加载
superuser2超过 11 年前
A lot of people on HN talk about how Facebook is pointless and on its way out. And it&#x27;s true, Facebook probably doesn&#x27;t make a lot of sense to people who are steeped in an email culture.<p>Young adults are <i>not</i>. Facebook is far and away the dominant messaging platform. Email in high school was for spam, communicating with teachers, and passing attachments ONLY. Short, synchorous messages that you didn&#x27;t mind typing with your thumbs would go via SMS, but more verbose synchronous conversations and email-like async conversations were invariably Facebook Messenger.<p>I can find <i>anyone</i> from my real life that I&#x27;m likely to want to talk to on Facebook just by knowing their real name and identifying their face in search results. It&#x27;s entirely frictionless - no exchanging identifiers or mucking around with pseudonyms. And I can have a conversation synchronously or asynchronously, transitioning seamlessly between devices and modes of communication, with conversation history, read receipts, and delivery confirmation always available.<p>Messaging is a more important part of Facebook than I think much of HN realizes. It makes sense that Facebook would neutralize WhatsApp&#x27;s threat to its hold on messaging.
评论 #7269634 未加载
评论 #7270365 未加载
jackgavigan超过 11 年前
Social networking is all about network effects. The biggest threat to Facebook&#x27;s position at the top of the pile is that another social network will come along, start to gain traction (most likely initially with users that <i>aren&#x27;t</i> current Facebook users - e.g. early teens) until it reaches a tipping point where current Facebook users start migrating to the new social network because that&#x27;s where the people they want to interact with are hanging out.<p>Once that tipping point is reached, the migration is likely to happen rapidly and irreversibly. By acquiring companies like Instagram and Whatsapp, Facebook is not only preventing them from usurping its social networking crown but bolstering its own position against future emerging competitors.<p>$19bn might sound like a lot but it&#x27;s cheap when you consider that the risk of <i>not</i> buying Whatsapp is that it eventually obliterates Facebook in the same way that Facebook obliterated Myspace and the original Bebo.
评论 #7270197 未加载
billyjobob超过 11 年前
Maybe I&#x27;m not down with the kids, but I&#x27;m not understanding what <i>any</i> of these message apps offer over plain old fashioned email. It alerts me on my phone, it works on my computer, it sends to groups, everyone already has it, it sends photos, it stores a history of all my past communications in one place accessible from anywhere. It&#x27;s not completely secure but at least you don&#x27;t have to trust any foreign corporation (Facebook, WhatsApp, etc) with your private messages and can run your own server if you like.<p>Also what if Facebook lock your account because they don&#x27;t like your name, or WhatsApp go bust and shut down in a few years time? Then you&#x27;ve lost everything, because it was locked into their proprietary little system. I don&#x27;t understand how anyone would chose one of these as their primary method of communication.<p>Especially as they are all newcomers, and email was well established as what the world used to communicate before they arrived. No-one buys a phone and then decides &#x27;Hmm shall I install email or WhatsApp&#x27;; no, you buy a phone, you set-up the email account that you&#x27;ve already had for 20 years, and then after that you maybe decide to install another app. This app offers nothing over email, yet you and all your friends abandon email and use the new app instead? That is some powerful marketing they must have done.
评论 #7269935 未加载
评论 #7268895 未加载
评论 #7268991 未加载
cangencer超过 11 年前
Interesting to see that they use Erlang. <a href="http://www.erlang-factory.com/conference/SFBay2012/speakers/RickReed" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.erlang-factory.com&#x2F;conference&#x2F;SFBay2012&#x2F;speakers&#x2F;...</a><p>I wonder if this is still valid?
评论 #7268317 未加载
Karunamon超过 11 年前
Welp. There&#x27;s another app that I won&#x27;t be accepting any updates for from now on...
评论 #7266756 未加载
评论 #7267407 未加载
评论 #7266672 未加载
samolang超过 11 年前
This seems insane. I love WhatsApp, but I recently switched to Google Hangouts because it also supports SMS and I don&#x27;t really miss it. I don&#x27;t understand how it can be worth this much when Google has already released a direct competitor to its product that is (and likely always will be) free.
评论 #7266814 未加载
stfu超过 11 年前
Love whatsapp, hate Facebook. As soon as they are trying to integrate whatsapp with Facebook I&#x27;m deleting that thing.
flyinglizard超过 11 年前
Clearly this is an anti competitive move. Both functionality and users overlap with FB&#x27;s own products.<p>So, for how long can FB pay billions a year to keep competition out of the market, when the barriers to entry are so low (as Snapchat and Instagram both demonstrated)?
minimaxir超过 11 年前
Suddenly Snapchat at $3B doesn&#x27;t seem so ridiculous.
评论 #7266696 未加载
adventured超过 11 年前
This acquisition is not YouTube or Instagram. This is a peak of the bubble purchase, that will be massively marked down for accounting purposes a few years from now.<p>Smart to buy them? Sure. For $19 billion? Nope.
MichaelTieso超过 11 年前
Personally I prefer Voxer. The requirement of having a phone number on WhatsApp doesn&#x27;t work for me. I&#x27;m constantly traveling and and using different SIM cards in different countries. I&#x27;d rather have a single sign-on that doesn&#x27;t require having to use any phone number.
dredmorbius超过 11 年前
Interesting to note that WhatsApp had started circulating some overly broad and ill-formed &quot;DMCA takedown&quot; notices a few days back: <a href="https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2014-02-12-WhatsApp.md" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;github&#x2F;dmca&#x2F;blob&#x2F;master&#x2F;2014-02-12-WhatsA...</a><p><i>By this email, please accept this formal notice and takedown request for the following content on the GitHub site. I am starting with these requests to ensure you will take action on our request. We will have follow-on requests, as the list of infringing content below is not exhaustive.</i><p><i>Specifically:</i><p><i>The following URLs use of the WhatsApp name and logo, use of other WhatsApp content, unauthorized use of WhatsApp APIs, software, and&#x2F;or services, and provision of software and services related to WhatsApp infringes on WhatsApp&#x27;s copyrights and trademarks, including those related to WhatsApp&#x27;s name and logo. WhatsApp&#x27;s trademarks are registered in the United States and countries throughout the world.</i><p>Note that:<p>• Trademarks aren&#x27;t subject to the DMCA.<p>• APIs aren&#x27;t copyrightable.<p>• TOU violations aren&#x27;t subject to the DMCA.<p>Given that the letter isn&#x27;t clearly formatted as a DMCA takedown (though it uses some sample language) the effect is ... curious.
pcocko超过 11 年前
It&#x27;s a bubble. I don&#x27;t beleive it can sustained over time. So simple apps sold for huge quantity of money
评论 #7267040 未加载
ezrameanshelp超过 11 年前
Zuckerberg just announced via Facebook profile: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10101272463589561?stream_ref=1" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.facebook.com&#x2F;zuck&#x2F;posts&#x2F;10101272463589561?stream...</a>
riveralabs超过 11 年前
It&#x27;s official. Facebook is the new Yahoo. Buying a lot of companies at ridiculously extreme premiums.
curiousDog超过 11 年前
In comparison, the Airbus A380 cost $11bn to develop. Is this really wise capital allocation by the street? Imagine what valuable technology could be built with this money. I for one, sold my stock in facebook just now.
评论 #7267726 未加载
dba7dba超过 11 年前
Found tumblr posts from sequoia on why Whatapp is great. <a href="http://sequoiacapital.tumblr.com/post/77211282835/four-numbers-that-explain-why-facebook-acquired" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;sequoiacapital.tumblr.com&#x2F;post&#x2F;77211282835&#x2F;four-numbe...</a><p>This is confusing for me though.<p>1. WhatsApp prides on: No ads No games No gimmicks<p>And WhatsApp doesn&#x27;t collect personal data.<p>Facebook is OPPOSITE of those attributes of WhatsApp.
chaz超过 11 年前
Just 50 employees. <a href="http://blog.whatsapp.com/index.php/2013/12/400-million-stories/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.whatsapp.com&#x2F;index.php&#x2F;2013&#x2F;12&#x2F;400-million-stori...</a>
评论 #7267031 未加载
评论 #7266944 未加载
评论 #7269312 未加载
k-mcgrady超过 11 年前
Even though at the time it seemed ridiculous I could understand paying $1bn for Instagram. Photos is Facebook&#x27;s most used product and Instagram was stealing users photos on mobile.<p>$16bn for WhatsApp I just can&#x27;t understand. Facebook has a brilliant messaging app. Lots of people use it - even people who use WhatsApp continue to use Facebook Messenger.
评论 #7267007 未加载
continuations超过 11 年前
How did WhatsApp gain traction? Presumably most of their users already use facebook, which offers the same messaging functionality as WhatsApp.<p>So why do people use WhatsApp instead of Facebook for messaging?
评论 #7267221 未加载
评论 #7267285 未加载
评论 #7269591 未加载
tomkarlo超过 11 年前
The fact that FB chose to pay $12BN in stock for this tells you something about what they think of their current valuation.
评论 #7266823 未加载
nkuttler超过 11 年前
Good for them!<p>Now on to uninstalling it :-(
评论 #7266758 未加载
zt超过 11 年前
Of all the companies founded since 2000, these are the following companies that are worth more than $10B: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, WorkDay, and ... WhatsApp.
评论 #7268453 未加载
koevet超过 11 年前
The WhatsApp platform is based on Erlang. I really hope that putting the application under the spotlight will also benefit Erlang and its adoption.
ulfw超过 11 年前
$19,000,000,000. Just making clear. 19 Thousand Million Dollars. 19 Billion. For a mobile app.
评论 #7269189 未加载
pearjuice超过 11 年前
Am I the only one upset with this? I don&#x27;t use Facebook - haven&#x27;t and never will - because I hate how I and all my data will become their product on registration. Sure, Whatsapp has its quirks being proprietary and all, but now, I am basically doomed. Whatsapp says they will stick to their core and stay independent, but I have 16 billion reasons to believe otherwise. The sad part is that due to Whatsapp, I can&#x27;t escape my doom because EVERYONE I contact daily uses Whatsapp. I would basically kill myself socially if I were to delete Whatsapp. I really, really hope Whatsapp stays Whatsapp but knowing Facebook we are f<i></i>ked either way.
评论 #7267278 未加载
评论 #7267137 未加载
评论 #7267604 未加载
wllchng超过 11 年前
This is definitely a defensive move against Tencent, who is using Wechat as their weapon for global penetration. Tencent must be seen as a threat, given their ability to monetize their userbase drastically better than Facebook or Twitter. There are rumors that Tencent is also a covert investor in Snapchat as well.<p>GGV Partner and China VC Hans Tung makes the argument that Tencent&#x27;s market cap will overtake Facebook&#x27;s in 3-5 years. <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/video/could-chinese-competition-beat-out-facebook-VFrr1lqDQqSfZeo27dvnvw.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&#x2F;video&#x2F;could-chinese-competition-bea...</a>
pdknsk超过 11 年前
It&#x27;s madness. Are the people involved aware that 16B is a number with 11 digits? It&#x27;s a serious question.
wslh超过 11 年前
How this negotiation evolves until the point of reaching this sum?<p>Is it like bargaining in the suoq (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Souq" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Souq</a>) ?
shmerl超过 11 年前
I hope they&#x27;ll convert this abomination into a proper XMPP service. On the other hand Facebook doesn&#x27;t federate with others anyway, so it&#x27;s one selfish beast buying another.
yawz超过 11 年前
$40&#x2F;user - $345m&#x2F;employee<p>Truly amazing! If you remember the days when JBoss was acquired by Red Hat, this is the same &quot;value&quot; as one JBoss per Whatsapp employee. Incredible!
评论 #7267243 未加载
newscracker超过 11 年前
For those who&#x27;re disturbed by this and would like to get away from WhatsApp, the least you can do is delete your WhatsApp account, followed by deleting the app itself. [This does not protect you from WhatsApp transferring all your data to Facebook]<p>Follow the instructions for your device to delete your WhatsApp account:<p>iPhone - <a href="http://www.whatsapp.com/faq/iphone/21325453" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.whatsapp.com&#x2F;faq&#x2F;iphone&#x2F;21325453</a><p>Android - <a href="http://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/android/21119703" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.whatsapp.com&#x2F;faq&#x2F;en&#x2F;android&#x2F;21119703</a><p>BB10 - <a href="http://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/bb10/28020005" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.whatsapp.com&#x2F;faq&#x2F;en&#x2F;bb10&#x2F;28020005</a><p>Windows Phone - <a href="http://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/wp/21335316" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.whatsapp.com&#x2F;faq&#x2F;en&#x2F;wp&#x2F;21335316</a><p>Nokia - <a href="http://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/nokia/21477616" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.whatsapp.com&#x2F;faq&#x2F;en&#x2F;nokia&#x2F;21477616</a><p>Blackberry - <a href="http://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/bb/21306771" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.whatsapp.com&#x2F;faq&#x2F;en&#x2F;bb&#x2F;21306771</a><p>---<p>Also, Telegram is wicked fast in my personal experience. I see a trickle of people joining Telegram over a period of time (well before this acquisition).
blazespin超过 11 年前
The simple issue is that Facebook is the one that is overvalued, not WhatsApp. I&#x27;m sure it was mostly paid for in stock.<p>If you don&#x27;t think Facebook is overvalued, that&#x27;s fine, but you can&#x27;t complain about WhatsApp then.<p>Also, I doubt this reduced Mark&#x27;s control of Facebook. Just his common share equity. He still has the special class of voting shares that I&#x27;m sure all he really cares about.
bagels超过 11 年前
I read all the comments, the whole time thinking about how crazy this number is.<p>I read why people use it, because it is cheaper (free?) than the ridiculous pricing of SMS.<p>So, I looked up the revenues generated by SMS, and it is estimated to be, according to a very cursory search:<p>150 Billion USD per year<p>This is the number that Facebook is using to compare their offer against. It is not crazy if they can capture even a few percent of that money.
评论 #7271982 未加载
goatslacker超过 11 年前
Just to put numbers into perspective:<p>NASA&#x27;s 2014 budget is 17.7b
tuxguy超过 11 年前
A well-written article which traces the lives of Jan Koum &amp; Brian Acton in some detail<p><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/02/19/exclusive-inside-story-how-jan-koum-built-whatsapp-into-facebooks-new-19-billion-baby/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.forbes.com&#x2F;sites&#x2F;parmyolson&#x2F;2014&#x2F;02&#x2F;19&#x2F;exclusive-...</a><p>Koum : “I want to do one thing, and do it well.”
calcsam超过 11 年前
This deal isn&#x27;t so that Facebook can sell ads. This deal is so that Facebook can protect its flank and simultaneously assault Google.
yeukhon超过 11 年前
16B? That&#x27;s a B, people. While there are a lot of whatsapp users (and people have to pay to use it), wow, that&#x27;s still a lot of money! How can they justify revenue that way? How can any company ever consider such acquisition? I don&#x27;t even think Google can even make 16B like this.<p>See this discussion: <a href="http://www.quora.com/WhatsApp-Messenger/How-much-revenue-is-WhatsApp-generating" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.quora.com&#x2F;WhatsApp-Messenger&#x2F;How-much-revenue-is-...</a><p>$20M net revenue, at most, right? With future expansion and side commercial services, I make $1B per year, fine. But that&#x27;s after tax. So WhatsApp must make A LOT more than $1B. I really don&#x27;t see anything else. But that&#x27;s only when WhatsApp can continue to grow and actually gain that much of commercial income. Someone who have dealt with acquisition tells me how 16B is the right number. I would pay $5B just because WhatsApp is well-established.
评论 #7267339 未加载
评论 #7266901 未加载
评论 #7267084 未加载
adamt超过 11 年前
This is Sequoia&#x27;s blog post. It was enough to make me slightly overcome my complete shock at the valuation ... <a href="http://sequoiacapital.tumblr.com/post/77211282835/four-numbers-that-explain-why-facebook-acquired" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;sequoiacapital.tumblr.com&#x2F;post&#x2F;77211282835&#x2F;four-numbe...</a>
mmcclellan超过 11 年前
For perspective, this is about Sony&#x27;s market cap. LinkedIn&#x27;s market cap is ~$24B and Twitter ~$30B.
batuhanicoz超过 11 年前
From the press release[0]:<p><pre><code> &quot;... and WhatsApp’s core messaging product and Facebook’s existing Messenger app will continue to operate as standalone applications.&quot; </code></pre> Why is that, I wonder. I was really excited when I heard the news since WhatsApp is the most used app and Facebook Messenger is the second, they becoming one would have been nice.<p>And chatting my friends on WhatsApp using Facebook Messenger [on the web] would be a killer feature for me, I feel the need for a web interface&#x2F;desktop app every time I receive a message on WhatsApp and my phone is away.<p>[0] <a href="http://newsroom.fb.com/News/805/Facebook-to-Acquire-WhatsApp" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;newsroom.fb.com&#x2F;News&#x2F;805&#x2F;Facebook-to-Acquire-WhatsApp</a>
评论 #7268383 未加载
ThomPete超过 11 年前
I am speechless....<p>Even if I apply all my knowledge about valuation, product market fit, historical knowledge and add a glass is half full attitude to this acquisition I can&#x27;t fathom that evaluation.<p>Then I think about instagram selling for &quot;only&quot; 1B and it kind of make sense. Kind of...
评论 #7267074 未加载
sschueller超过 11 年前
So, now can we get someone to make an open source, distributed, and NSA secure chat client?
评论 #7267651 未加载
x0054超过 11 年前
Could someone explain to me why WhatsApp is more popular then say Skype or any of the numerous competitors. I looked at it for the first time today. I find the design of the app to be a bit poor, at least on iOS6. Overall it&#x27;s a good app that functions well, from what I can see. But so does Skype, for instance. Also, the lack of a PC&#x2F;MAC client is kind of a letdown.<p>I know it&#x27;s silly to argue with facts, clearly people really like this app. But could someone explain to me why? I mean, how is it better than Fring, or Skype, or Viber? Or is it just luck? I am curious because if they did something right, I would love know what it was, so I can do it too :)
评论 #7270319 未加载
评论 #7269463 未加载
评论 #7269383 未加载
matthewhelm超过 11 年前
&quot;$4 billion in cash and approximately $12 billion worth of Facebook shares&quot;
reubenswartz超过 11 年前
Like many people, I found the price staggering. However, given that WhatsApp is growing and may pass FB in active users in the next 2-3 years AND WA has a great monetization strategy... It&#x27;s not crazy to think that in a few years 1B people would be paying $1 per year. Want to double revenues? How &#x27;bout $2&#x2F;year. $5? $20 in US and other first world markets, $2 in developing countries? Why not? In addition to the defensive move, this is about disrupting a multi hundred billion dollar wireless industry. I wouldn&#x27;t have had the guts to do it, but I don&#x27;t think Zuck is stupid.
评论 #7269202 未加载
locusm超过 11 年前
They recently did 54B messages in a 24 hr period <a href="https://twitter.com/WhatsApp/status/420373902980689920" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;WhatsApp&#x2F;status&#x2F;420373902980689920</a>
blackaspen超过 11 年前
Damn.<p>I know Whatsapp is a big deal -- when I was in HKG a few weeks back every advertisement was Phone Number and Whatsapp number (We&#x27;re talking on-bench advertising) and on TV as well. Still, crazy.
评论 #7267135 未加载
weixiyen超过 11 年前
It&#x27;s a crazy amount to pay, but in mobile software only 2 things really matter - Photos and Messaging. These are the only 2 things that are universal to every single person on this planet who owns a mobile device and if you want to be #1 overall in the mobile space, you need to win in these 2 things.<p>If this guarantees FB winning the messaging war, then it&#x27;s worth it. I still think that Facebook needs to buy SnapChat, Line and WeChat to close the deal and fulfill their dream of connecting the world.
shin_lao超过 11 年前
Mark Zuckerberg is most certainly very intelligent and I&#x27;m pretty certain his board is highly capable.<p>If they are ready to pay $ 16B for WhatsApp it means that it&#x27;s worth, for them, $ 16B.<p>For me the take away is that Facebook struggles to grow in &quot;underdeveloped&quot; countries and will pay whatever it takes to make sure these zones are easy to conquer.<p>Those markets are the growth of tomorrow and Facebook is certainly plateauing at home.<p>In the long run, I think Facebook will become some sort of shell company for &quot;anything social&quot;.
danhopwood超过 11 年前
As I tweeted this morning: <a href="https://twitter.com/dan_hopwood/status/436411010212454400" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;dan_hopwood&#x2F;status&#x2F;436411010212454400</a><p>WhatsApp is to messaging what PayPal is to payments. Right product, right time. Slow design iteration &amp; little innovation over time. But as we&#x27;ve seen, it hasn&#x27;t mattered. Stripe, Line, WeChatApp know all too well that moving off <i>such</i> established players is tough.. but not impossible.
wudf超过 11 年前
At least we&#x27;ll still have viber
评论 #7267760 未加载
评论 #7267841 未加载
berzniz超过 11 年前
I wish they didn&#x27;t sell. Love the product, FB will ruin it.
评论 #7266781 未加载
评论 #7266761 未加载
jimzvz超过 11 年前
Now facebook will access to my contact list :( It is really difficult to remove Whatsapp as it the primary communication tool for most of my network. Really sad news.
mudil超过 11 年前
Disney is valued at $103B. That includes ESPN, parks, cruises, Star wars, movies, merchandise, etc etc etc. So how&#x27;s What&#x27;s app is 1&#x2F;5th of it?
评论 #7267860 未加载
kenshiro_o超过 11 年前
Can anyone put in numbers what the benefit is for FBK in paying so much for whatsapp? I just don&#x27;t understand how a messaging company can be &quot;worth&quot; so much, even after extrapolating the expansion in user base.<p>Don&#x27;t get me wrong - WhatsApp is a great product and very easy to use on top of that (using phone number as id is a great idea to onboard users in a very intuitive way). But I fail to see where this valuation is coming from.
评论 #7267119 未加载
评论 #7267161 未加载
robot超过 11 年前
Erlang anyone?<p><a href="http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920021452.do" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;shop.oreilly.com&#x2F;product&#x2F;0636920021452.do</a>
评论 #7269889 未加载
idleworx超过 11 年前
And goodbye WhatsApp. It was time to move on anyway.
AznHisoka超过 11 年前
Can someone enlighten me why WhatsApp is popular, and &lt;INSERT ANY MOBILE CHAT&#x2F;IM APP&gt; is not? Why not Google Talk? Why not AIM?
hoi超过 11 年前
Makes perfect sense if you put it into the context of what is happening to other messaging apps. Wrote this a few days ago before Viber and now this acquisition. <a href="http://www.hoista.net/post/76404923258/the-rise-of-trojan-horse-platforms-kakaotalk-wechat" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hoista.net&#x2F;post&#x2F;76404923258&#x2F;the-rise-of-trojan-ho...</a>
adventured超过 11 年前
Anyone else think the &quot;users&quot; obsession smells an awful lot like the &quot;eyeballs&quot; obsession?<p>Oh but these companies have revenue? WhatsApp and Snapchat have no meaningful revenue in comparison to their valuations. And the companies with revenue, are being valued at insane multiples (infinity for Twitter, 85 to 100 times for Facebook, 800 or so times for LinkedIn).
prosperva超过 11 年前
This was sorely done to retain users but I predict users are going to leave both services and join Viber. Will Facebook also buy Viber?
CmonDev超过 11 年前
Is it even real money that those companies are exchanging? I can&#x27;t believe it&#x27;s same stuff I use to buy bread.
siliconbeach超过 11 年前
<a href="http://d.pr/i/2LPx" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;d.pr&#x2F;i&#x2F;2LPx</a> Mark&#x27;s post about it.
domydeal超过 11 年前
In order to keep up FB&#x27;s stock valuation the need to show continued growth which slowing at a vary rapid rate. WhatsApp is adding 1 million new users per day. That&#x27;s what zuck bought. And the ROI? Will be the market applauding FBs growth and driving the stock price to $100.
napoleond超过 11 年前
How many active users does WhatsApp have? I&#x27;m trying to put this in perspective with the Instagram purchase and the Snapchat offer... finding it very difficult to understand the math behind this acquisition, although it is obviously linked to the recent plays with Messenger.
评论 #7266777 未加载
评论 #7266759 未加载
tulga超过 11 年前
Facebook going to mobile operator business. They have very good relationship with Microsoft. Microsoft has mobile platform and Nokia and Skype. I think FB + MS will create something to change whole telecommunication platform. Many mobile operator companies afraid that.
paulrademacher超过 11 年前
I think I will nominate myself to be the single person on Hacker News, who after an announcement of a huge mega-acquisition, will skip all the high-minded analysis and discussion of business models and ROI, and simply say:<p>Wow, I wish I had a $19B acquisition -- I&#x27;m jealous :-)
评论 #7267882 未加载
andrewfelix超过 11 年前
Serious question: What is so compelling about whatsapp? There are so many IM protocols out there.
评论 #7267638 未加载
peteridah超过 11 年前
WhatsApp has become the defacto medium of communication with my friends and family in Africa, emerging way ahead of phone numbers, sms, facebook et al. I am not thrilled by the service, but if you want to stay in the loop, you have to join the bandwagon.
matan_a超过 11 年前
$3B in RSUs for employees. Assume 50 employees and equal share - that&#x27;s $60M each. Wow.
3apo超过 11 年前
Relevant: Why we don&#x27;t sell ads : Whatsapp (2012) <a href="http://blog.whatsapp.com/index.php/2012/06/why-we-dont-sell-ads/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.whatsapp.com&#x2F;index.php&#x2F;2012&#x2F;06&#x2F;why-we-dont-sell-...</a>
rokhayakebe超过 11 年前
Instead of stating the obvious, or hating, and congratulating, it would be nice to hear your thoughts on the value of this deal, what FB will gain, where do you see the IM space heading, could this be a Youtube like acquisition, etc...
vladgur超过 11 年前
Wow, thats an incredible return on a $8m sequoia investment<p><a href="http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/08/sequoia-whatsapp-funding/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;techcrunch.com&#x2F;2011&#x2F;04&#x2F;08&#x2F;sequoia-whatsapp-funding&#x2F;</a>
booruguru超过 11 年前
Facebook is barely 10 years old and they&#x27;re already the new Microsoft...maintaining dominance by acquiring every major competitor that poses a threat. And I&#x27;m not necessarily saying that&#x27;s a bad thing.
tomkin超过 11 年前
This tech bubble is different.<p><a href="http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_17/b4225060960537.htm" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.businessweek.com&#x2F;magazine&#x2F;content&#x2F;11_17&#x2F;b42250609...</a>
fidotron超过 11 年前
The question here is where do FB see the value? Is it a pure defensive play about messaging or are they after the social graph you could extract (along with a lot of other juicy data) from the WhatsApp DB?
techaddict009超过 11 年前
Google placed bid of 1 billion $ and mark just multiplied it with 16 ! lol!!
评论 #7267831 未加载
vmavalankar超过 11 年前
You know we all know and feel the same: <a href="http://vmavalankar.svbtle.com/why-facebook-bought-whatsapp" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;vmavalankar.svbtle.com&#x2F;why-facebook-bought-whatsapp</a>
jebblue超过 11 年前
What is WhatsApp? I saw the name somewhere before, maybe on HN, but who are they that they can command a price in the billions? Isn&#x27;t it a messaging app? Why isn&#x27;t Pidgin worth $16 Billion?
Kiro超过 11 年前
<a href="http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/messaging-international.jpg" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;02&#x2F;messagin...</a><p>Understandable.
rottyguy超过 11 年前
A few thoughts..<p>I&#x27;m sure like many, I&#x27;m blown away at that price tag consider Motorola went for 12B and the recent TWC&#x2F;Comcast is valued at 45B with both having hard assets. But after some reflections, I can see some positives that grounds my disbeliefs a bit.<p>1) As someone has already calculated $40&#x2F;user is really not that bad (though how many overlap with fb already?)<p>2) You have trusted groups with WA, something you don&#x27;t really have with FB (facilities are there but I doubt many use it).<p>3) With trusted groups, you tend to be a bit more open about your dialog so fb could gleen yet more, arguably better, information about you.<p>The other question in my mind are what other features are of value to WA? Video (facetime-esq) seems like a no brainer...
awkwit超过 11 年前
It&#x27;ll be interesting to see if we still have as many Whatsapp-type apps in future. It seems like there&#x27;s already quite a few... WhatsApp... WeChat... Line... Kakaotalk...Viber...
kolev超过 11 年前
Desperation shadows reason. I personally think Kik was a better buy.
RandallBrown超过 11 年前
What does WhatsApp offer that regular old text messages don&#x27;t?<p>Is it just a price thing?<p>I can group chat, send images, and send video with everyone, even people with dumbphones just fine using text messages (MMS).
评论 #7267910 未加载
评论 #7268424 未加载
评论 #7268130 未加载
tuxguy超过 11 年前
<a href="http://www.quora.com/WhatsApp-Messenger/How-did-WhatsApp-grow-so-big" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.quora.com&#x2F;WhatsApp-Messenger&#x2F;How-did-WhatsApp-gro...</a>
vmavalankar超过 11 年前
Here&#x27;s why .. <a href="http://vmavalankar.svbtle.com/why-facebook-bought-whatsapp" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;vmavalankar.svbtle.com&#x2F;why-facebook-bought-whatsapp</a>
vmavalankar超过 11 年前
Here&#x27;s Why .. <a href="http://vmavalankar.svbtle.com/why-facebook-bought-whatsapp" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;vmavalankar.svbtle.com&#x2F;why-facebook-bought-whatsapp</a>
mnl超过 11 年前
Aaand WhatsApp is down... on Saturday night (GMT+1). Chaos looms over Spain as we can&#x27;t remember when was the last time we used anything else to send plans for tonight.
idleworx超过 11 年前
One can only wonder how many services or products that provide true value and innovation around the world could have been created with that much money instead...
ksoti超过 11 年前
Stupid question but will &quot;existing&quot; whatsapp users have to use their&#x2F;create a new facebook account to use whatsapp starting in a few months?
jokoon超过 11 年前
what makes whatsapp so attractive already ?<p>I don&#x27;t understand how it really avoid the SMS cost... I mean you can&#x27;t have a data plan across the entire world...
评论 #7271197 未加载
techaddict009超过 11 年前
Seems like Mark Zuckerberg is turning crazy day by day!!
Nux超过 11 年前
<a href="http://www.whatsapp.com/faq/android/21119703" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.whatsapp.com&#x2F;faq&#x2F;android&#x2F;21119703</a>
meric超过 11 年前
They might as well go ahead and buy WeChat as well.
评论 #7266962 未加载
评论 #7266858 未加载
评论 #7266988 未加载
TomGullen超过 11 年前
If I was a FB holder think I&#x27;d rather take a 10% dividend:<p>$19000000000 (purchase price)&#x2F;2547000000 (number of shares) = ~$7.50 per share
dannyrosen超过 11 年前
It&#x27;s about the user&#x27;s contact graphs and making the connections stronger. They&#x27;re buying user&#x27;s phone books.
ulfw超过 11 年前
Blackberry should have sold BBM to Facebook and shut it&#x27;s doors. Their whole market cap is about a quarter of that.
downandout超过 11 年前
$3 billion in employee RSUs&#x2F;~50 employees=~$60 million each. There are some very happy WhatsApp engineers today.
sirji超过 11 年前
Whatsapp was popular just because of its simplicity. Are this people going to screw whatsapp? Hope they don&#x27;t
kayoone超过 11 年前
they dont buy the users or the app or the team. What they buy is massive mobile usage. Lately i always thought that Whatsapp was becoming the next facebook as event planning, foto sharing and of course messaging transitioned from fb to whatsapp. Looks like fb thinks the same, they feared whatsapp.
tool超过 11 年前
Great, the only way I was able to stay in contact with people without using facebook is gone. Cancer.
vassvdm超过 11 年前
This is fascinating. To think I was trying to convince people that MySMS was better than Whatsapp...
adamio超过 11 年前
Spend $19billion here in the hopes of segmenting the market with more startups hoping to cash in?
karthikeleven超过 11 年前
Now, you can finally say: It is OK to be a social startup and not be based out of San Francisco.
hatred超过 11 年前
Today , I feel I am really bad at maths counting return percentages. <i>Sigh</i> $8m -&gt; $16b.
评论 #7267611 未加载
pyrrhotech超过 11 年前
crazy to think WhatsApp is worth almost as much as Netflix or Tsla. I think they overpaid. Will short the stock at open tomorrow. I was long $25 to $55, but this kind of recklessness with a young management team is destroying shareholder value.
bobowzki超过 11 年前
Congrats to the whatsapp people!!
yoodenvranx超过 11 年前
Can somebody explain me who gets this money and how it is distributed to the owners?
评论 #7276979 未加载
tzury超过 11 年前
This will be the largest Israeli Startup Exit of all times I think.
评论 #7266690 未加载
评论 #7267765 未加载
评论 #7267067 未加载
KevinAtHome超过 11 年前
Strange no one is mentioning threema, getting popular in germany.
pinkskip超过 11 年前
OMG. Next step Facebook messenger and whatsapp are merged?
samsquire超过 11 年前
Does anyone know any alternatives (with group chat)?
评论 #7267223 未加载
评论 #7270444 未加载
评论 #7267674 未加载
评论 #7267364 未加载
kdot超过 11 年前
Facebook just purchased 400,000,000 phone numbers.
评论 #7282394 未加载
评论 #7269224 未加载
31reasons超过 11 年前
New business model: Become a thread to Facebook.
te0006超过 11 年前
This is just sick. Does at least some tax apply to such transactions in the US?<p>Or think what the Gates Founation woul dbe able to do with just, say, a quarter of this money.
评论 #7267666 未加载
KaoruAoiShiho超过 11 年前
This is a much better buy than snapchat I think. But why is FB once again the only one taking social seriously? Hello Google what are you doing...
评论 #7267593 未加载
评论 #7269306 未加载
return0超过 11 年前
Is that a record price or something?
评论 #7276972 未加载
dylanjha超过 11 年前
How much revenue does WhatsApp have?
dodyg超过 11 年前
The biggest question is off course when they will finally migrate from their Erlang backend to JavaScript.
throwaway5752超过 11 年前
Are you fucking kidding me?
imarihantnahata超过 11 年前
And now, WhatsApp is down!
vdhus超过 11 年前
does this mean Viber should feel ripped off at $900m?
steven2012超过 11 年前
In one fell swoop, Snapchat went from fools to geniuses. Unbelievable.
评论 #7268047 未加载
Srinivas_Tamada超过 11 年前
Very height price
hrish2006超过 11 年前
This sucks.
mrwnmonm超过 11 年前
why should we care about this more than other things in our lifes?
评论 #7268352 未加载
hasenj超过 11 年前
Am I the only one who thinks this is beyond crazy?<p>Youtube was acquired for less than $2B (and not even in cash!)
happyscrappy超过 11 年前
Maybe part of it is for the data on WhatsApp users.<p>* &quot;In the event that WhatsApp is acquired by or merged with a third party entity, we reserve the right to transfer or assign the information we have collected from our users as part of such merger, acquisition, sale, or other change of control.&quot; [they go on to say that they may not be able to control use of information in cases which include &quot;reorganization&quot;] <a href="http://www.whatsapp.com/legal/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.whatsapp.com&#x2F;legal&#x2F;</a><p>Still seems ridiculously expensive.
notastartup超过 11 年前
I think this one will be the turning point for Facebook, remember that M &amp; A in the corporate world have history of senseless and expensive moves that end up bankrupting the company who buy it, $40 per user is an extremely risky bet when Facebook themselves can&#x27;t even monetize it&#x27;s own userbase. This appears to be a road to become as big as possible so that you can&#x27;t possibly appear to fail when faced with companies like Microsoft, Google, Yahoo who are after profitability aligned with their own products.
mknits超过 11 年前
Facebook is now like American Kingfisher! Users from India will understand.
almosnow超过 11 年前
Damn, from any viewpoint you want to see it, just damn.
gailees超过 11 年前
HOLY SHIT!
gailees超过 11 年前
Email is dead.