He got rich from selling WhatsApp and now he regrets it: “Spit dirty money”

History is full of amazing minds who created a product or service, became millionaires, and after a while, the project they developed became their worst nightmare. This happened to Alfred Nobel with dynamite and to some extent to Jack Dorsey, co-founder and former CEO of Twitter. Dorsey admitted in a tweet that contributing to the centralization of the Internet and social media was a mistake. The latest to join the list of repentants (and millionaires) is Neeraj Arora, former Chief Business Officer (CBO) of WhatsApp and one of the great proponents of selling it on Facebook.

Neeraj Arora admitted in a post on LinkedIn and Twitter that he deeply regrets the sale of WhatsApp to Mark Zuckerberg’s company, a sale that also made him a millionaire and helped him get started. other projectsYes HelloApp, a private social network where we can only talk to numbers saved in our contact list that show Arora’s plans for WhatsApp, but Zuckerberg didn’t fulfill when he picked up the messaging app. Hence the regret.

It was 2009 when Jan Koum and Brian Acton founded the most popular messaging application in the world today: WhatsApp, an app that even replaced the word “message” in the minds of many people. How many times have you said “send me a WhatsApp”, instead of “message”? A lot, right? Neeraj Arora joined the team as the company’s Business Director two years later.

Between 2010 and 2020, many of the social networks and applications that changed our daily lives emerged and became popular: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, WhatsApp … They all started as independent companies , but their huge potential called the attention of other tech moguls eager to focus and dominate the market.

Among the list of names is that of Mark Zuckerberg, who in 2012 was set to take over WhatsApp. Then, managers refused, but two years later, Meta’s CEO called the company one last time. gate by Jan Koum and Brian Acton.

Previously, Neeraj Arora was the Chief Business Officer of WhatsApp. Arora is a major player in Facebook’s instant messaging app sales worth $ 22 billion.

Eight years later, and in conjunction with Elon Musk’s recent purchase of Twitter, Arora regrets participate in that transaction: “For people (like me) who have family in some countries, WhatsApp is a way to stay connected, without having to pay for SMS or calls from long distance“, wrote.

Buying WhatsApp via Facebook (now Meta) remains one of the biggest technology deals in history, even though Elon Musk just broke all Twitter acquisition records. The negotiation conditions have not been easy, So it took several years before an agreement was reached.

According to Arora’s Twitter thread, Facebook has promised to maintain end-to-end encryption, no ads, complete freedom in product decisions, a board seat for Jan Koum, and its own office in Mountain View. For its part, WhatsApp has requested not to retrieve user data, do not insert advertising or allow tracking by user device and platform.

Facebook accepted WhatsApp’s terms, but as expected, Zuckerberg did not comply his word and did everything the messaging app asked him not to do. Without further ado, a year ago, WhatsApp changed its terms of use to allow Facebook to access information from the messaging application.

“No one knew at first that Facebook was going to be that Frankenstein monster it swallows user data and spits out dirty money. neither do we knowNeeraj said in a post.

Aim, on the tight rope

Certainly now Facebook is not at its best. Meta (formerly Facebook) faces an unprecedented set of challenges. Its advertising business is on the line after Apple limited its ability to collect data. Mark Zuckerberg’s company is also In the eye of the storm for allegedly violating anti -antitrust laws and withholding information about the effects of Instagram on teenagers.

To all of this, we need to add the accusations of Frances Haugen, a former employee of the company willing to expose all of Facebook’s dirty laundry, such as her possible involvement in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol for no made about it or not fighting the discourse of hatred directed at minority groups.

Arora and Jan Koum and Brian Acton both left WhatsApp in 2018. For his part, Neeraj created another messaging application “with the user in mind” with Michael Donohue. It’s called HalloApp and it’s a private social network where we can only talk to numbers saved in our contact list. The startup founders believe Limiting the size of groups will help reduce that the potential for abuse.

Instead of ads, HalloApp plans to charge subscription fees, maybe a dollar or two a month. Groups are limited to 50 people. So far, the app has raised $ 15 million from investors including Sequoia Capital, former Facebook board chairman Jim Breyer and WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton.

With information from La Vanguardia