Oh dear, oh dear. It’s really looking like things aren’t going Mark Zuckerberg’s way.
Two weeks after his awkward appearance at the European Parliament, petty clashes and long-standing tensions have led to WhatsApp’s founders leaving Facebook, ending the partnership between the two platforms.
In a report by CNBC, WhatsApp co-founders Brian Acton and Jan Koum gave up over R11 billion and R5 billion, respectively, by leaving Facebook.
Those amounts are definitely nothing to sneeze at, so why the hell did these two give up all that moolah?
Per a report by CNET, there was a lot of drama behind the scenes:
The major divide was over monetizing [sic] the messaging app, which has 1,5 billion users. Koum and Acton had been resistant to adopting Facebook’s widely lucrative targeted advertising model, which uses personal data to let marketers show ads to specific types of users on the social network.
The disagreements led to tensions between Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg [both pictured below] …
The troubles between WhatsApp and Facebook also included culture clashes. WhatsApp employees preferred a quieter work environment – the opposite of Facebook’s bustling and sprawling Silicon Valley campus. There was also resentment over WhatsApp’s larger desks and requests for nice bathrooms.
Okay, the last one sounds like a very petty matter, but still.
Acton [pictured above, left] was the first to up and leave Facebook back in November last year, and he forfeited R11 billion in potential stock rewards, explains CNET. But the folks at Facebook weren’t pleased with what he did next:
Acton tweeted in March, after he left the company, that he was deleting his Facebook account, amid outcry around the data exchange between Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. That move angered Facebook executives, one of whom called it “low class.”
Low class or not, to virtually bury your former business partner – especially one as large as Facebook – takes a whole lotta nerve.
Koum [pictured above, right] announced his departure in early April around the Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica data scandal was flaring up. It’ll come into effect in August, meaning he’ll be giving up an eye-watering R5 billion.
With all these petty antics having gone down, I highly doubt Acton and Koum are going to kiss and make up with Zuckerberg any time soon.
