Just a month ago, WhatsApp founder Jan Koum appeared to be dead-set against selling his company. In an interview with Wired UK editor David Rowan, Koum pointed out that the best companies — including Facebook — have resisted buyout attempts.
"I think for us, when we started the company for me and [co-founder Brian Acton] personally, we wanted to build something that was here for the long term," Koum said. "We wanted to build something sustainable. It's not that hard to sell a company. But if you look at the great companies we have today — Facebook and Google and Yahoo and Twitter — the companies that have been around for a long time, they didn't sell. They actually stuck around and stayed independent and built a great offering for their users."
See also: The $6.8 Billion Man: WhatsApp CEO's Path from Poverty to Riches
"I think for us it's about building a company that's here to stay that is here for the next 10, 20, 50 years," Koum added.
At the end of the interview, which took place during the DLD14 Conference in Munich on Jan. 20, Rowan asked Koum to promise that he wouldn't sell the company. "That's the goal," Koum answered. "We're trying to build a company that we can be proud of and not something that is quickly built to pump and dump."
Of course, less than a month later, Koum would announce that Facebook would acquire his messaging company in a $16 billion deal that could cost Facebook as much as $19 billion over the next three years. Both Facebook and WhatsApp have maintained that WhatsApp will be run autonomously.
That, however, is not the same as remaining strictly independent.
As YouTube commenter David Furphy noted on the video above:
The WhatsApp founder seems to have softened his views on a few topics since having $16 billion waved in front of his nose. Fair enough. But its a reminder to take every thing you hear from founders and CEOs with a huge bucket of salt.
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