Acquired
From Struggles to Silicon Valley: The Yahoo Transformation
This chapter explores the inspiring journeys of two key figures in tech who overcame personal and professional challenges to reshape Yahoo. It highlights their partnership during critical transformations, especially the Project Panama initiative, and reflects on the company's shifting values and struggles against competitors like Google.
We kick off Season 6 with a long-awaited Acquired Classic: Facebook’s $22B purchase of WhatsApp in 2014, which still ranks as the largest acquisition of a private VC-backed startup in history. Yet despite that enormous pricetag and all its associated fanfare, as we sit here 5+ years later WhatsApp actually generates LESS revenue than the meager ~$20m it was bringing in at the time of acquisition. Was this this worst acquisition of all-time, or a brilliant strategic chess move by Mark Zuckerberg & co? Tune in as we render Acquired’s judgement!
Note: Unfortunately David’s audio quality in this episode was impacted by a technical glitch which we didn’t discover until after recording. Our editors worked super hard to fix in post-production, but it’s still not totally perfect. We hope you’ll give it a listen regardless, and we’re working on getting a transcript made ASAP, which we’ll post to the website when it’s ready. Thanks for bearing with us,
-Ben & David
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Carve Outs:
- Ben: Computer glasses: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=computer+glasses
- David: Reebok Floatrides: https://www.amazon.com/Reebok-Forever-Floatride-Energy-Black/dp/B07NYBRQ96/
Sources:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WhatsApp
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/02/19/exclusive-inside-story-how-jan-koum-built-whatsapp-into-facebooks-new-19-billion-baby/#64c1c94b2fa1
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/03/04/inside-the-facebook-whatsapp-megadeal-the-courtship-the-secret-meetings-the-19-billion-poker-game/#63d8b5c4350f
- https://www.wired.com/2015/09/whatsapp-serves-900-million-users-50-engineers/
- https://youtu.be/v6PbymjXsto
- https://youtu.be/X4YsJt4rIOI
- https://overcast.fm/+WorS9-a74
- https://youtu.be/-2CAWS7M_0w
- https://youtu.be/X4YsJt4rIOI
- https://www.wired.co.uk/article/whats-app-owner-founder-jan-koum-facebook
- https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/whatsapp-brian-acton-delete-facebook-stanford-lecture
- 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/#7475a0213f20
- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-06-28/tencent-rules-china-the-problem-is-the-rest-of-the-world
- https://techcrunch.com/2013/07/16/whatsapp-free/
- http://allthingsd.com/tag/jan-koum/
- http://allthingsd.com/20130510/whatsapp-ceo-jan-koum-hates-advertising-and-the-tech-rumor-mill-full-dive-video/
- https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/31/whatsapp-hits-1-5-billion-monthly-users-19b-not-so-bad/
- https://blog.whatsapp.com/10000633/Building-for-People-and-Now-Businesses
- https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/05/whatsapp-business-app/
- https://techcrunch.com/2014/02/21/whatsapp/
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/whatsapp-founder-plans-to-leave-after-broad-clashes-with-parent-facebook/2018/04/30/49448dd2-4ca9-11e8-84a0-458a1aa9ac0a_story.html
- https://www.wsj.com/articles/whatsapp-backs-off-controversial-plan-to-sell-ads-11579207682
- https://www.wsj.com/articles/behind-the-messy-expensive-split-between-facebook-and-whatsapps-founders-1528208641?mod=article_inline
- https://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/06/05/whatsapp-co-founder-stresses-independence-from-facebook/?mod=article_inline
- https://bgr.com/2020/01/17/whatsapp-ads-2020-facebook-canceled-plans-to-bring-ads-to-status-bar/
- https://www.vox.com/2018/5/8/17329524/whatsapp-new-ceo-facebook-cofounder-jan-koum-departs
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/chdaniels/
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/jkoum/
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