Technology
I helped sell WhatsApp to Mark Zuckerberg for $22 billion and now I regret it
AN EX-WHATSAPP employee claims he regrets his involvement in the sale of WhatsApp to Mark Zuckerberg.
Neeraj Arora, former Chief Business Officer at WhatsApp, described Facebook as a “Frankenstein monster” and says he’s not the only one with regrets.
AFPNeeraj Arora claims Facebook, now Meta Platforms, didn’t keep the promises it made during its WhatsApp acquisition[/caption]
Arora recently tweeted: “In 2014, I was the Chief Business Officer of WhatsApp. And I helped negotiate the $22 billion sale to Facebook. Today, I regret it.”
In a long thread, he goes onto tweet about supposed promises that Facebook said it would keep if it acquired WhatsApp.
Arora says these promise were not kept and have negatively impacted users.
The original WhatsApp team only started to considered a Zuckerberg takeover in 2014 but said there must be no ads, no games and no gimmicks on the app.
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Arora tweeted: “Of course, that’s not what happened. In 2014, WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook for $22 billion (in cash & stock). But by 2017 and 2018, things started to look very different…”
He added: “Today, WhatsApp is Facebook’s second largest platform (even bigger than Instagram or FB Messenger).
“But it’s a shadow of the product we poured our hearts into, and wanted to build for the world.
“And I am not the only one who regrets that it became part of Facebook when it did.”
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WhatsApp was originally founded in 2009 and Arora joined the team in 2011.
Facebook, now Meta, originally showed interest in the app in 2012/2013 but its offers were rejected.
It wasn’t until 2014 that a deal was agreed upon and Zuckerberg added the app to his collection.
Things later turned sour when WhatsApp began to change in a way the co-founders didn’t like.
In 2018, WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton tweeted: “It is time. #deletefacebook”.
Arora is now calling for tech companies to admit their mistakes or when they’ve wronged users.
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He tweeted: “Tech companies need to admit when they have done wrong.
“Nobody knew in the beginning that Facebook would become a Frankenstein monster that devoured user data and spat out dirty money. We didn’t either.”
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