Jan Koum: "People starting companies for a quick sale are a disgrace..." [2012]

How is this a quick sale? He built the company over 5 years, and then sold it for $19 billion. The sale price equates to an 11% stake in Facebook at its current market cap. That is a huge, world crushing exit.

I hadn't ever used this app before I downloaded it today, just to check out why Facebook payed $19 billion. It looks to me like a total ripoff of the iPhone SMS Messaging App. It sounds like they have a huge userbase, and have been able to monetize it, so there is real value there. However, this valuation seems, quite simply, insane.

Even if all 400 million of their users paid $1 per year (which isn't happening), this purchase price would be 47x revenue. Of course, since many internet software companies are operating in negative revenue territory, this is perhaps reasonable in comparison.

Not taking 19 billion would have been a truly foolish business decision. I assume this link was posted to imply this is a disgrace, but he can hardly be faulted for building something so successful that it is a target ft acquisition. Also this wasn't just a quick sale, it's great for his team and a big step for him since he'll be joining Facebook's board.