★★★★★ (5 out of 5)
Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing Whatsapp.
Many of today’s modern companies start off as one thing and become another. Google was first a searching website but now it is an electric monocle manufacturer and car company. Computer company Whatsapp got its start as a beer commercial.
Recently, Facebook inventor Mark Zuckerberg wanted to have Whatsapp so he paid what I thought was a typo but was actually nine billion dollars. There’s nothing I’ve ever wanted that badly. Maybe for my wife to come back to life.
The most I paid for something that wasn’t a necessity was $360 for a painting at an auction. Then when I got it home I didn’t like it as much as I thought. I tried to improve the painting by adding some rockets to the background but it didn’t help. I just threw the painting away.
Whatsapp must be amazing. Really amazing. So amazing that owning it is better than using that money for all the other things one could do with nine billions dollars. That’s a pretty amazing company when you think about it. Wow!
I’m surprised that for an industry that is supposed to be so innovative, Whatsapp allowed themselves to be acquired in such a lazy and old-school way as throwing money at something you want. I expected more from the company that brought society the ‘like’ button and poking.
Off the top of my head, I can think of several more innovative ways to acquire a company:
- Many people would take a life for much less than nine billion dollars. My nephew has a friend who will do it for $100. Mark Zuckerberg and the inventor of Whatsapp could have had a fight to the death. The winner gets both companies.
- Start a series of companies with names like Whutsapp, Whatsappp, and Whizzapp. Eventually it would be so hard to tell them all apart that no one would notice if the real one went missing.
- Put nine billion dollars into developing programs for underprivileged youth to teach them the skills needed to succeed in the start-up world. I’m sure there’s another Whatsapp or even better company just waiting to be found.
Since Whatsapp is so amazing, I hope being bought by someone who can’t think of a better way to get what they want doesn’t devalue them.
Please join me next week when I’ll be reviewing my new start-up: Boingle.
