WhatsApp founder Brian Acton talks about the breakup with Facebook who discarded payment of 96 billion yen for conscience

After raising a messenger application "WhatsApp" with more than 1 billion users, after selling it to Facebook at 2 trillion yen or more, I abandoned the right to receive reward of 850 million dollars (about 96 billion yen) and leave Facebook WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton asked Forbes's exclusive interview, how the sale of WhatsApp to Facebook, the conflict with CEO Mark Sackerberg later, why I left Facebook, and never give up I am confident about my own policy that I can not do.

Exclusive: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton Gives The Inside Story On # DeleteFacebook And Why He Left $ 850 Million Behind
https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2018/09/26/exclusive-whatsapp-cofounder-brian-acton-gives-the-inside-story-on-deletefacebook-and-why-he-left- 850 - million - behind /

Mr. Acton worked as an initial member of Yahoo in 1996 after obtaining Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University and worked mainly as a manager in the advertising division until leaving Yahoo in 2007. However, although setting up an advertisement banner on Yahoo's portal site was an important role to bring great revenue to Yahoo, it was sacrificing the user's Web experience in return for higher profit, and Mr. Acton said, "Bitter experiences That was. "

Mr. Acton who left Yahoo seems to have asked for a job on Facebook, but unfortunately it does not go on to join Facebook. After that, I joined the development of a messenger service developed by a friend Yan Ku-mo, who was on good terms from school days and worked at Yahoo while I was in school. This service is "WhatsApp".

In order to obtain development funds of WhatsApp, Mr. Acton said that he gained money by persuading one former colleague at Yahoo to participate in the investment in the seed round. Thus Acton got 20% of WhatsApp stock as a co-founder of WhatsApp.

The motto of WhatsApp who succeeded in launching in 2009 was "No advertisement, no operation, no gimmick". This policy is to protect privacy strongly without cutting out user data. Unlike other Messenger services, WhatsApp adopts a mechanism that stores communication data only on the local (user's terminal) without placing communication data on the external server. Furthermore, by applying strong encryption processing to data, we realized the exchange of messages between individuals who can not be readily seen by anyone by putting it in such a state that third party can not decrypt even WhatsApp of course.

Mr. Acton and Mr. Coom focused on maintaining the health of the infrastructure and managed the business according to the situation. WhatsApp does not rely on advertisement revenue, basically offering services with a policy to make a charge more than a certain amount while paying for service at no charge, Mr. Acton said "It is correct over time It is said that it was a business model that "Make it." This can be said to be a true opposite style to Facebook with a motto of "98% of revenue from advertisements" to move quickly and destroy things ".

In 2012, Zuckerburg CEO contacted Mr. Coom and they decided to have lunch with Los Altos. At that time Mr. Kohm invited Mr. Acton to e-mail, so Mr. Acton decided to meet with Zuckerburg CEO. At the time, Mr. Acton and Mr. Coom had no plans to sell WhatsApp and he did not even imagine the exit strategy.

However, at the beginning of 2014, Zuckerberg was willing to negotiate acquisition of WhatsApp with unprecedented willingness. Zuckerburg, CEO of Zuckerburg, who was refusingly talked about a bid for 3.0 billion dollars (about 300 billion yen) to the popular young messenger application "Snapchat", is planning to acquire a larger scale WhatsApp I switched. It was said that the competition of Zuckerberg ceased by the information that Google was also concerned about the acquisition of WhatsApp at the time.

The purchase amount presented in the acquisition negotiation held at a law firm contracted by WhatsApp is an unprecedented scale of 16 billion dollars (about 1.6 trillion yen), and finally it will be 22 billion It was a huge sum of dollars (about 2 trillion 200 billion yen).

Facebook acquires free chat application "WhatsApp" for 1.64 trillion yen - GIGAZINE

Mr. Acton said that there was no time to investigate clauses on monetary payment in detail, although it is an acquisitive negotiation with tremendous huge sums. However, Mr. Acton and Mr. Coom requested only the policy "I do not want to place ads on WhatsApp". In response to this offer, CEO Zuckerberg said, "I am thinking about services from a long-term perspective and I will not strongly urge WhatsApp to monetize over the next five years," the person who participated in the acquisition consultation testified It is.

However, contrary to the words of Zuckerburg CEO, Facebook's move was much faster than Mr. Acton's expectations.

In November 2014, suspicion that Facebook's acquisition of WhatsApp would violate European antitrust law was taken and Acton was delegated responses to EU regulatory authorities. From Facebook, Mr. Acton tells us to explain, "Because end-to-end encryption done by WhatsApp is powerful, it is technically difficult to exchange and confuse data with the Facebook service," says Acton. And, as a result of explaining with his own real intention that he does not want to exchange user data between Facebook and WhatsApp, the acquisition was approved.

But then, Mr. Acton learned that Facebook is preparing plans and techniques to combine data between the two services. Specifically, it is said that one way to associate a Facebook account with a WhatsApp account from a phone book number is one of them. And in 2016 WhatsApp's terms of service agreement was revised and it was decided to associate with Facebook. Acton said, "It seemed to me that everyone was placing a bet," They thought that the EU might have forgotten since enough time has passed. " .

The European Commission imposed a fine of 110 million euros (about 14 billion yen) against Facebook in May 2017 on the grounds that there was no such "good fortune" convenient to provide false information in the acquisition . Mr. Acton seems to be seen as "liar" in less than 18 months.

Linking the accounts of both WhatsApp and Facebook was an important step in monetizing WhatsApp. To Facebook management who demands Mons of WhatsApp, Mr. Acton and Mr. Coom compromised the account link in order to secure the sanctuary "Do not put ads". In other words, the site of advertising revenue is just Facebook, and in the position that WhatsApp sends users to there, the relationship "WhatsApp input, Facebook output" was born.

Three years after the acquisition, Zuckerberg 's patience has completely wrested, and it was said that WhatsApp staff began expressing "dissatisfaction" at the meeting where all members participated. Just around that time, Facebook was aiming for a profit of $ 10 billion (about 1.100 trillion yen) within five years, but Mr. Acton thought that the figure was so big that there was no way to rely on advertisements That's right.

Mr. Acton suggested raising the revenue of WhatsApp by weighting when the free user exceeds a certain amount of message, but he was dismissed by Facebook Cheryl Sandberg COO. At that time, Mr. Acton seems to understand that "they (Facebook management team) are excellent business people, express business customs, principles, ethics, policies". And they seem to understand that Actons and WhatsApp are not always able to agree.

Mr. Acton felt "an unpleasant taste between teeth" in Yahoo's experience trying to raise money even at the expense of the user experience. And it was also felt on Facebook. Acton said, "If it is gold, that should be done" is what she hated about Yahoo and was disliked about Facebook.

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In September 2017 CEO Zuckerberg invited Mr. Acton to his office. When Mr. Acton arrived at the office of Zuckerberg, there was a Facebook lawyer there. Mr. Acton presented a clear objection to the monetization proposal via Facebook's advertisement and suggested a long-term plan to increase profit by increasing the number of users, but Facebook law firm did not agree . Zuckerberg said he told that, "Maybe this may be the last time you speak with me." Mr. Acton chose not to fight, "At the end of this day, I sold" WhatsApp ", I became a traitor, I understood that."

In September 2017, Mr. Acton declared to leave Facebook after expressing concern about the monetization of WhatsApp by Facebook. This meant that at the time of acquisition, Actton also lost the right to earn $ 850 million (about 96 billion yen) as remuneration for Facebook's restricted shares. Mr. Acton said, "Perhaps it was the moral behavior that was the highest in history." The moral code that Mr. Acton still complies with seems to be valued above 96 billion yen.

Mr. Acton is currently investing 50 million dollars (about 5.5 billion yen) on a small messaging application "Signal" developed by Mr. Moxy Merlin Spike. The open source encryption protocol "Signal Protocol" of Open Whisper Systems, the developer of Signal, is known for being used also for WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook Messenger, and others.

According to Acton, Signal seems to have the goal "to make private communication accessible and ubiquitous", even if there are no millions of users. Acton is working on rebuilding the "pure and ideal WhatsApp" which is "a platform that can be chatted and talked for free, end-to-end encryption is applied, and has no obligation to place advertisements".