Jan Koum picked a meaningful spot to sign the $19 billion deal to sell his company WhatsApp to Facebook earlier today. Koum, cofounder Brian Acton and venture capitalist Jim Goetz of Sequoia drove a few blocks from WhatsApp’s discreet headquarters in Mountain View to a disused white building across the railroad tracks, the former North County Social Services office where Koum, 37, once stood in line to collect food stamps. That’s where the three of them inked the agreement to sell their messaging phenom –which brought in a miniscule $20 million in revenue last year — to the world’s largest social network.
http://www.forbes.com
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Earlier today, Facebook announced its acquisition of WhatsApp for $16 billion. It’s a spectacular milestone for the company’s co-founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton, and their remarkable team. From the moment they opened the doors of WhatsApp, Jan and Brian wanted a different kind of company. While others sought attention, Jan and…
Tags: brian, whatsapp, jan, facebook, company, mountain, sign, view, $, billion
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Hayes has devoted the past fifteen years to studying atrazine, a widely used herbicide made by Syngenta. The company’s notes reveal that it struggled to make sense of him, and plotted ways to discredit him. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/02/10/140210fa_fact_aviv
Tags: company, #longread
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A few weeks ago David Carr profiled Kevin Kelly on page 1 of the New York Times Business section. He wrote that Kelly's pronouncements were "often both grandiose and correct." That’s a pretty good summary of Kevin Kelly's style and his prescience. http://www.edge.org/conversation/the-technium
Tags: #longread
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Nate Weiner is neither a journalist nor a publisher. He’s a developer bent on changing publishing, and he’s built the platform to do it. With 10 million users, Pocket is the largest save-for-later service on the market. But more than market share, what sets Pocket apart is its ability to…
Tags: largest, #longread, built
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In Mike McQueary, some see a hero who brought down a monster. Others see a liar who railroaded a legend. At the upcoming trial that will close the book on the Jerry Sandusky scandal, Joe Paterno's former protégé will have the final word. http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/10542793/the-whistleblower-last-stand
Tags: #longread, brought
Facebook Inc. (FB)’s $19 billion purchase of mobile-messaging startup WhatsApp Inc. is a stark reminder of how much money phone carriers are losing out on as competitors let users text and chat at no charge.
Free social-messaging applications like WhatsApp cost phone providers around the world — from Vodafone Group Plc (VOD) to America Movil SAB (AMXL) and Verizon Communications Corp. — $32.5 billion in texting fees in 2013, according to research from Ovum Ltd. That figure is projected to reach $54 billion by 2016.
http://www.bloomberg.com/
Previous article : https://www.currencyfundgroup.com/2014/02/10/we-all-turn-to-data-adios-sms-and-calls/
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Facebook has bought messaging app WhatsApp in a deal worth a total of $19bn (£11.4bn) in cash and shares. It is the social networking giant's biggest acquisition to date. WhatsApp has over 450 million monthly users and is popular with people looking to avoid text messaging charges. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26266689
Tags: whatsapp, facebook, $, users, text, telecom, economy
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Earlier today, Facebook announced its acquisition of WhatsApp for $16 billion. It’s a spectacular milestone for the company’s co-founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton, and their remarkable team. From the moment they opened the doors of WhatsApp, Jan and Brian wanted a different kind of company. While others sought attention, Jan and…
Tags: whatsapp, facebook, competitors, communications, $, billion, telecom, economy
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The $19 billion deal to sell WhatsApp Inc. to Facebook Inc. (FB) started at Yahoo! Inc. more than five years ago, when Jan Koum became disillusioned at the way Internet companies were fixated on advertising. He left Yahoo in 2007 with one of the company’s other engineers, Brian Acton, and…
Tags: whatsapp, http://www.bloomberg.com, facebook, fb, billion, $, telecom, economy
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With its proposed deal to buy Viber Media, Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten is stepping into a war zone. The world of smartphone communications apps is fiercely competitive with many powerful players, and Viber’s success isn’t guaranteed. So why is Rakuten paying $900 million to get into this market? http://blogs.wsj.com/
Tags: $, communications, telecom, economy
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Square’s recent troubles are not exactly a secret. The Wall Street Journal published a detailed analysis on April 21, detailing Square’s financial troubles and its rapidly shrinking cash position. Square took on a $100 million debt financing option earlier this year, but even with that option, WSJ and The Verge reported that the…
Tags: startup, economy
Group of 20 finance ministers need to find ways to boost productivity growth or risk seeing the world economy to slip into an extended period of low growth, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said.
The widespread drop in productivity may “presage the beginning of a new low-growth era,” OECD Chief Economist Pier Carlo Padoan said in a report. “The global economy’s momentum remains sluggish” and these concerns “now encompass emerging-market economies” as well as developed ones, he said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/
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http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/gigafactory.pdf
Tags: global, economy
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Follow up of my post on BIG COMPANIES NOW HAVE A HAND IN THE COLLABORATIVE ECONOMY Here is one picture.
Tags: economy
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Greek debt tracker As the government in Athens haggles with its lenders over economic reforms,Greece is running out of money. Here is what it owes in the upcoming months. http://www.ft.com/ig/sites/2015/greek-debt-monitor/
Tags: economic, economy
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Publicis CEO Maurice Levy's last-ditch offer to let Omnicom chief John Wren be CEO couldn't save the $35 billion deal to create the world's largest advertising company. http://postcards.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/
Tags: chief, economy
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This is a story about ARM Holdings (ARMH), the mobile technology company. But before it gets going, here are a few things you need to know: 1. ARM is a company made up mostly of chip engineers. They design parts of chips—such as graphics and communication bits—and they design entire…
Tags: economy
Currency traders are having their worst start to a year since 2010 as a dearth of trends in major foreign-exchange markets crushes their investment strategies.
Deutsche Bank AG’s Currency Returns Index has dropped 0.3 percent since Dec. 31, dragged down by momentum trading, where investors looks for consistent moves in one direction. The gauge, which is also based on techniques including carry and valuation, rose in 2013 by the most in four years.
http://www.bloomberg.com/
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Russia invades Ukraine: beware of a risk off weekly opening
Tags: trading, currency
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Software AG today unveiled the latest addition to its Apama market surveillance solution with alerts to identify FX (foreign exchange) market manipulation and benchmark fixing. Developed in partnership with tier one banks, these new alerts provide compliance and market monitoring personnel with in-depth monitoring of FX trading, to identify benchmark…
Tags: trading, ag, currency
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In less than three weeks, the most important election of the year will take place in Switzerland, and you haven’t heard of it. While the U.S. focuses on the recent Republican victory, the financial markets are facing an earth-shaking event on November 30th. This Swiss election seeks to challenge the…
Tags: currency, markets, trading
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Citigroup's head of European spot foreign exchange trading, Rohan Ramchandani, has left the global bank, a spokesperson told Reuters on Friday. "He is no longer with Citi," bank spokeswoman Danielle Romero-Apsilos told Reuters. Asked if Ramchandani, who has been based in London, had been fired amid a global investigation into…
Tags: bank, based, markets, currency, trading
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With the Federal Reserve printing trillions upon trillions of dollars to keep the economic system afloat, many investors and financial pundits have surmised that the fundamental economic problems facing the United States during the crash of 2008 have been resolved. Stocks are, after all, at historic highs. But the…
Tags: currency, trading
He’s become a successful CEO and a generous person, but ten years ago, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg used to have something of an attitude.
For example, he used to carry a business card that read, “I’m CEO…Bitch.”
Once, back then, Zuckerberg played a pretty nasty prank on top venture capital firm Sequoia Capital.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-sequoia-made-on-whatsapp-2014-2
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http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/gigafactory.pdf
Tags: economy
80
Follow up of my post on BIG COMPANIES NOW HAVE A HAND IN THE COLLABORATIVE ECONOMY Here is one picture.
Tags: economy
78
Publicis CEO Maurice Levy's last-ditch offer to let Omnicom chief John Wren be CEO couldn't save the $35 billion deal to create the world's largest advertising company. http://postcards.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/
Tags: ceo, billion, $, economy
76
This is a story about ARM Holdings (ARMH), the mobile technology company. But before it gets going, here are a few things you need to know: 1. ARM is a company made up mostly of chip engineers. They design parts of chips—such as graphics and communication bits—and they design entire…
Tags: economy
76
Greek debt tracker As the government in Athens haggles with its lenders over economic reforms,Greece is running out of money. Here is what it owes in the upcoming months. http://www.ft.com/ig/sites/2015/greek-debt-monitor/
Tags: economy
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