I’d say that you don’t go easily from zero to being bought by Facebook for $19billon but actually you just don’t go there at all. Maybe that will change now that the social media firm’s payout for WhatsApp has set a bar for how much companies will pay for technology they need, but it’s still a dizzying amount. So dizzying that one can spend longer thinking about the cash than about how WhatsApp got there. Forbes has the story and it is a very interesting, even inspirational, read.
Jan Koum picked a meaningful spot to sign the $19 billion deal to sell his company WhatsApp to Facebook earlier today. Koum, cofounder Brian Acton and venture capitalist Jim Goetz of Sequoia drove a few blocks from WhatsApp’s discreet headquarters in Mountain View to a disused white building across the railroad tracks, the former North County Social Services office where Koum, 37, once stood in line to collect food stamps. That’s where the three of them inked the agreement to sell their messaging phenom –which brought in a miniscule $20 million in revenue last year — to the world’s largest social network.
Do note that Forbes is an excruciating site to read: you’ll have to schlep through popups to get to the text and there’s a semi-permanent floating ad that cuts down how much you can see at once. If you’re reading on Safari on a Mac, this is why the Reader mode is needed.