Founder and CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg
In addition to the friendship between the founders of the two companies , the story of Facebook 's acquisition over WhatsApp with a very high value turned out to not be separated from a bakery and Valentine's Day .
Founder and CEO of Facebook , Mark Zuckerberg , has been friends with the founder and CEO of WhatsApp , Jan. Koum , since two years ago . Zuckerberg was the one who first invited Koum to chat over a cup of coffee at a bakery in Los Altos , California , United States . It was the spring of 2012 .
One who knows the history told Bloomberg , talks between the two lasted for more than two hours .
Since then , the two became friends pretty familiar . They often meet for dinner or just walking around the city together .
Until February 9, 2014 , Koum Zuckerberg visited the house , in Palo Alto , California , for dinner . At that time they discussed the possibility of WhatsApp to join www.internet.org , a movement initiated by a Facebook campaign and other technology companies so that more and more people are connected to the Internet from a mobile device .
Source Bloomberg said , this is a historic moment because this is where Zuckerberg catapult its intention to buy WhatsApp .
Koum indirectly receive Facebook wishes . He asked for time to think .
Five days later , right on Valentine's Day , on February 14, 2014 , Koum back there when Zuckerberg was having dinner with his wife , Priscilla Chan .
They then negotiate the price , which of course is adapted to the current value of the company WhatsApp .
Until finally , on Wednesday ( 19/02/2014 ) , Facebook announced it will acquire WhatsApp worth 19 billion U.S. dollars, or around Rp 223 trillion .
Such payments are not fully in cash . Facebook will be poured funds amounting to 16 billion U.S. dollars , which consists of U.S. $ 12 billion Facebook shares and $ 4 billion in cash .
Facebook also provide 3 billion U.S. dollars of restricted stock for founders and employees WhatsApp will be given for four years after the acquisition is completed .
For Facebook , this is the greatest value of the acquisition , after they acquired Instagram in April 2012 valued at $ 1 billion .
WhatsApp was founded in 2009 ago by Jan Koum and Brian Acton . Both are former Yahoo employees . As of December 2013 , WhatsApp has 50 employees , 25 of whom are technicians , while 20 more handles multilingual support for users .
WhatsApp own money to attract a fee of 0.99 U.S. dollars a year for each user . They have a principle not to display ads or other features that may interfere with the user's convenience . In developing the business , WhatsApp has a philosophy of anti - advertising , the company even has a manifesto against the ad .
WhatsApp invested capital firms Sequoia Capital by $ 8 million U.S. in early 2011 . Since then , WhatsApp does not open a new phase of investment because they are able to make money from the service .