Saturday, February 22, 2014

WhatsApp Acquired by Facebook: A Ukrainian near Kiev Rags to Riches Story Merges Some of the Values, Economics and Politics of East and West

Kiev and the Ukraine are also positively in the news these days.

Let us learn from successes, not failures.

How about the incredible rags-to-riches story of a Ukrainian near Kiev native, Jan Koum who together with partner Brian Acton created WhatsApp, which could serve as a model for politics in the "merge" by Eastern and Western entrepreneurs via adoption of some essential and proven Western political and economic values and practices, while also maintaining some important perhaps more Eastern old-fashioned traditions and values, such as privacy.

Just read

Parmy Olson at Forbes in The Rags-To-Riches Tale Of How Jan Koum Built WhatsApp Into Facebook's New $19 Billion Baby

and

Try, Try Again: The Incredible Story of WhatsApp's Tenacious Founders

for the human interest side of Facebook's buyout of WhatsApp.

The Economist has the more business side of things at
Getting the messages
in presenting a report concerning the multi-billion dollar
WhatsApp and Facebook deal.

We just hope that Facebook does not ruin the marvelous WhatsApp application, which we also use regularly,
whose major selling point is not only a simple, intuitively excellent interface
but also the attendant absolutely necessary protection of privacy.