How to Build a Product IV - Jan Koum, Co-founder of WhatsApp - Stanford CS183F: Startup School
Stanford Online2017-04-28
Stanford#Y Combinator#WhatsApp#Jan Koum#CEO#Co-founder#How to Build a Product#Startup school#Startup#computer science#CS183F#cs#innovation#entrepreneurship
55K views|7 years ago
💫 Short Summary
Jan Koum, founder of WhatsApp, stumbled into creating a popular product after leaving Yahoo. WhatsApp initially struggled but gained traction with push notifications and messaging features. The app revolutionized communication methods, focusing on reliability and user needs. WhatsApp's success was attributed to the timing coinciding with smartphone popularity. The speaker discussed competition in the messaging industry and the importance of understanding user behavior. WhatsApp aimed to provide efficient and reliable communication globally. The founder highlighted the importance of funding and partnerships in the company's growth. Localization and hiring strategies were key to WhatsApp's global expansion. The app prioritized simplicity, security, and user feedback, leading to its success.
✨ Highlights
📊 Transcript
✦
Jan Koum shares the story of creating WhatsApp after leaving Yahoo.
01:36Koum fell in love with his Nokia phone during a break in 2008 and later bought an iPhone to explore iOS SDK.
He built a simple app and discovered its full Internet connectivity capabilities.
WhatsApp quietly grew to over 450 million users and was eventually acquired by Facebook.
Koum credits timing and location, rather than a brilliant idea, for their success.
✦
Evolution of WhatsApp Status Feature
05:05WhatsApp started with a status feature similar to AIM and ICQ for user availability.
The app integrated with mobile address books but lacked Apple's Address Book APIs on desktops.
Despite early adoption, WhatsApp 1.0 failed to gain traction as users preferred traditional calling methods.
The team struggled to compete with native dialer apps and added unpopular features.
✦
Apple's introduction of push notifications in 2009 revolutionized messaging apps like WhatsApp.
08:17iOS limitations on background tasks prior to push notifications caused challenges for developers.
The threaded SMS feature introduced by iOS inspired creators to enhance messaging capabilities.
WhatsApp messaging launched in September or October with rapid adoption due to high international SMS costs and lack of real-time communication alternatives like Skype.
This marked a significant shift in communication methods.
✦
Evolution of Messaging Systems.
11:24Messaging systems evolved from unreliable SMS to more reliable platforms to overcome limitations such as cost, character restrictions, and platform compatibility.
Visual indicators and reliable message delivery revolutionized communication.
Challenges were addressed by hiring experienced engineers and expanding to platforms like Nokia and Blackberry.
The use of Python in building the Nokia client showcased the team's adaptability and innovation in meeting user needs.
✦
Development process of adding features like group chat, multimedia, and voice messages to a messaging product using Python.
14:48Importance of scaling the backend system based on experience at Yahoo and challenges faced.
Success of messaging app as a 'killer app' for smartphones coinciding with the rise of smartphones.
Focus on enhancing communication capabilities as a key factor in the app's success.
✦
Launch of iMessage and Facebook Messenger in Silicon Valley.
19:14Silicon Valley's iPhone dominance overshadowed the iMessage launch.
Facebook initially faced messaging struggles, acquiring Beluga for group messaging.
Transition to Facebook Messenger within the app improved messaging capabilities.
Difference between Facebook and phone contact graphs highlighted, with phone numbers indicating higher communication levels.
✦
Evolution of communication towards online platforms like Facebook and chat apps.
23:31Importance of focusing on product and users in the messaging app industry.
Contrast between various messaging apps vying for attention and staying under the radar.
Impact of social media on communication habits, leading to a decrease in calls and SMS in favor of online interactions.
✦
Importance of simplicity and solving basic problems in app development.
25:13The app aims to make communication easier and cheaper for users worldwide.
Emphasis on solving a global need and potential for scalability to billions of users.
Competition between Messenger and WhatsApp, each with strengths in different geographic regions.
✦
Incorporating WhatsApp on founder's birthday in 2009 to submit an app to the Apple Store.
29:55Seeking help from a friend who was an insurance broker to simplify the process of filing paperwork and paying a fee at the State Building.
Allowing submission of the app under the company name, WhatsApp, which led to approval from Apple.
Emphasizing the significance of building for a wide range of smartphone users to reach a broader global audience.
✦
Development and growth of WhatsApp app.
33:47The app was initially funded by the speaker's savings from Yahoo and ran on a friend's server to save costs.
Switched to their own servers as the app grew, managing expenses efficiently using experience from Yahoo.
Raised a small angel round and monetized the iPhone app to cover bills.
Initially declined funding from investors, which increased investor interest in partnerships.
✦
Importance of Funding for Business.
35:21Having money in the bank account is crucial for financial stability according to Jeff Who's advice.
Taking funding was decided to ensure financial stability for the company.
Adding messaging features to a product transformed user engagement and perception, leading to increased interest and positive feedback.
Shift in psychology within the company was observed when people desire and appreciate the product, resulting in a change in motivation and enthusiasm among employees.
✦
Partnering with Sequoia for Fundraising
38:58Sequoia's reputable brand and hands-off approach were key factors in the decision.
Sequoia promised financial help without interfering in management or operations.
Sequoia's assistance with recruiting and strong industry reputation were appreciated.
Seeking advice from a Sequoia partner highlighted the significance of being part of the Sequoia family for startups.
✦
WhatsApp's strategy of building different platforms for countries with low iPhone usage contributed to their global growth.
42:21The company emphasized localization by hiring multilingual employees to provide customer support in various languages.
WhatsApp founder shared insights on convincing early employees to join the company, many of whom were unemployed or seeking new opportunities.
The recruitment strategies of WhatsApp focused on attracting employees who were looking to move closer to family.
Anecdotes shed light on the initial team composition and recruitment strategies of WhatsApp.
✦
Overcoming Hiring Challenges in Tech Startups.
45:15The speaker discusses failed stock option promises and finding skilled engineers.
Recruitment strategies included referrals and personal connections, like Michael from Yahoo.
Emphasis on technical problem-solving to attract engineers, such as convincing Rick to join the team.
Successful onboarding of individuals through leveraging personal connections and technical challenges.
✦
Importance of defining key features in product development.
48:32Early feedback from users requesting features like groups and multimedia.
Sticking to vision led to decisions like using phone numbers instead of usernames or PINs.
Security measures implemented in Messenger app, including end-to-end encryption on a global scale.
Commitment to user satisfaction and strong belief in encryption technology evident throughout discussion.
00:08Today's speaker, we have Jan Koum.
00:10Jan is the founder of WhatsApp.
00:12Whatsapp as we mentioned in earlier
00:15iteration of this is the startup
that did everything right.
00:18After not getting, after trying
to get jobs at Facebook and not,
00:23for either Jan or Brian,
they put their heads down.
00:27They figured out a product
that people really wanted.
00:29And while everybody else in
Silicon Valley was going to conferences,
00:33doing PR,
whatever else it is that people do,
00:35other than making a product
that people really love.
00:38WhatsApp just quietly built
this thing that was used by,
00:41how many people at the time
of the acquisition?
00:43>> 450.
00:44>> 450 million people for a consumer app,
and more than a billion now, and
00:48it was acquired by Facebook
a couple of years ago.
00:51And Jan can tell that story.
00:53But that you very much for
coming to talk to us.
00:56>> Sure, thanks for having me.
00:57So when Sam asked me to come and
speak here, I think I made some smart-ass
01:02comment how I'm going to speak about like
people actually building a product and
01:07not going to class or something like that.
01:09But as Sam mentioned,
we were just fortunate in a way
01:13that we stumbled into something
that people really wanted.
01:18And I'll explain in
a second how we got there.
01:22But the credit really
goes to not necessarily
01:28us having some brilliant idea.
01:32I think the credit goes to also being
in the right time and the right place,
01:36and building a product that people wanted.
01:38And just realizing that people wanted it.
01:41So just to kind of give the quick
history of how we got where we got,
01:46we actually, both me and
my co-founder Brian, we were Yahoo for
01:51about, I was there for 9 years,
he was there for 11 years.
01:56And that time was actually really,
really valuable for
02:01us to learn how to scale back-end servers,
what makes a good product,
02:07what makes a bad product and
kind of seeing the Yahoo as a company
02:12get really successful and
then kind of, you know the story.
02:17So we left in 2007 just coincidentally
02:20we both left around the same
time within a month difference.
02:25And we took some time off,
we took about a year off.
02:28So we left at 2007, we took all 2008 off.
02:33He moved to New York with his girlfriend,
I was just goofing off and
02:37I really fell in love with my Nokia phone.
02:40I had this candy bar,
I think it was 6610 Nokia phone.
02:44That I jailbroke, I installed a net mon
software on it which showed you which
02:47mobile cell you were connected to, and
all this advanced things you could do with
02:51a phone, that you couldn't do
when you took it out of the box.
02:59my birthday was coming up in February, and
03:02I figure I'll get myself an early
birthday present, I'll go buy an iPhone.
03:08So I went to Apple Store,
bought an iPhone and
03:12right around the same time SDK came out,
03:15I think there was no SDK when
iPhone first came out in 2007.
03:20But I think they released it at September
of 2008 so I was like literally three,
03:25four months after iPhone came out.
03:27Sorry, after iOS SDK came out, I got
an iPhone and I started tinkering with it.
03:32I was also really bored and
I had a lot of free time.
03:34So I'm like okay, well, let's install
this weird thing called Xcode,
03:38luckily I had a Mac.
03:39Let's install Xcode,
let's figure out what can be done.
03:43Let's build a simple app, and
then you kind of realize, holy ****.
03:47It has full Internet connectivity and
it can do full TCP/IP stack.
03:51So it basically is a little computer
that can talk to your server.
03:56So I'm like, okay, cool,
what can we do with it?
04:00So the first thing that we built,
04:01which I don't know how many of
you know the history of WhatsApp.
04:05The first thing that we built was
actually this concept of a status.
04:08And so the idea was if you ever used,
and you all might be too young for this.
04:13If you ever used something like AOL AIM or
ICQ or
04:16IRC or any of these products,
you have this concept of a status.
04:21Like Yahoo Messenger has this away from
keyboard or I'm busy or I'm in a meeting.
04:25And so the first thing that you would do
when you used those messengers is you
04:29would like, the first message you
would send was, hey are you there?
04:32That was like the first message you sent
to start a conversation with somebody on
04:37like ICQ or
if you private messaged somebody on IRC.
04:40Because people would be away and so they
would the status to kind of indicate like,
04:45I'm not near a computer or
I'm AFK or whatever.
04:48And so the idea was like, well,
let's take this concept of status and
04:53just apply it to your phone.
04:54So before people call you,
they can check your status.
04:57Maybe you're busy, maybe you're in a
meeting, maybe you're traveling, whatever.
05:02So if you don't pick up,
it lets people know why you don't pick up.
05:05And that was kind of like
the WhatsApp 1.0 application.
05:13And what we built was, the app that
hooked into your address book.
05:18So the other thing that kind of
worked in our favor was there were
05:21Address Book APIs on a mobile phone.
05:23They didn't really exist on a desktop,
right.
05:25If you think about desktop like
Windows from 2000 to 2008-ish,
05:31people never really put address
books on their desktops.
05:36People always had address
books on their mobile phones.
05:39And so even if the API existed,
there was like nothing to query
05:43because the address book database
was empty on all these devices.
05:47And so luckily,
the one thing that Apple opened was
05:52their address book APIs,
which was great for us.
05:57So what we did was, sorry, we basically
went through the address book and
06:02we could figure out if the contact in the
address book was another WhatsApp user.
06:07And that's basically
how the status worked.
06:09We would take your phone number, and
if it was an international phone number,
06:14we would try to normalize
it to the plus format.
06:17So your phone number would start,
all the phone numbers in our system,
06:19would start with a plus in
the full international format.
06:22And we will be able to do that if
the other person is a person on a WhatsApp
06:27network, a user of our product.
06:30And the idea was that,
before you start a phone call, or
06:34before you send a message, you would check
the status of this person from WhatsApp.
06:40And they would say, I'm available and
you would call them.
06:42Right, so, that was WhatsApp 1.0,
06:45it failed horribly,
it was a disaster, it was depressing.
06:49Nobody used it, people downloaded it,
actually, surprisingly enough,
06:53and I think people downloaded it
because there were no apps at the time.
06:56There were like maybe 1000 or
06:582000 apps in the whole App Store
because it just went live.
07:01So we benefited from being early,
but the idea wasn't so great.
07:06So people would download and
they'd just like never use it.
07:09People just called people
like they normally would.
07:12It was really hard to
replace a native dialer, and
07:14that's kind of what we wanted to do.
07:15We wanted to replace a native
dialing application.
07:20So we We struggled for
07:23a little bit, we kept adding all
these weird features in retrospect.
07:27Back then we thought they
were the best thing ever.
07:30You could set your status to automatically
change at a certain time of day.
07:33If you knew you were always in
a meeting from 2 to 4, you could
07:36automatically configure it to always say
that you're in a meeting from 2 to 4.
07:39So it kind of had that functionality.
07:42And then something happened around
the summer of 2009, Apple introduced push
07:45notifications so back then if you
wanted the application to wake up,
07:50the only way to wake up was the user
tapping on the application item.
07:54And there was no way to do anything in the
background which in retrospect was really
07:57back words because I do not know if any
of you know about Nokia Symbian phones.
08:02Well, 60 blackberry had over capability.
08:05Even before iPhone came
out to do auto start,
08:08to do background multitasking,
to do networking, to do all of the stuff.
08:12And so IoS actually limited what
we can do, so we're struggling.
08:17And then Apple introduced Push
notifications were like, hallelujah.
08:20So we ended up,
who came into Apple push notifications?
08:26I think this was like
around the summer time.
08:29Even before they were still in beta
because we have developer access.
08:32And we noticed that people were
using of this status as a way to
08:35kind of communicate with each other.
08:37They would change the status to
say like I'm going to a bar.
08:40And like the change of status
would like broadcast and
08:44go to all the other people who used
WhatsApp in their address book.
08:48And so around the summer of
2009 we're like, interesting.
08:54Maybe we should build messaging.
08:55And then it all kind of clicked
because I've always used SMS.
08:59And if you remember on the old Nokia
phones, the SMS was not threaded.
09:04So you would get a message,
it would show up with a phone number.
09:06And if you get another
message from that person,
09:08it would show up as just
another entry in your list.
09:12And then iOS came out and they introduced
threaded SMS, and everybody went wow.
09:17So we said okay, well, we can do
full networking, we can do TCP/IP.
09:22We can connect a phone, if your phone is
a client, to a server on the back end.
09:27We already had all this code to figure
out if you're a WhatsApp user or not.
09:32We could take your phone number parse it,
figure out all the international prefixes.
09:38We even figured out Argentina at some
point, which was not an easy thing to do,
09:41but we got there.
09:44So, we got to a state where we
could actually send messaging,
09:48have people send messages over WhatsApp.
09:51And, if you look at our application today,
you see all those features.
09:53You see group chat.
09:54You see ability to send media, to record
voice messages, to do all the stuff.
09:59We didn't have any of it.
10:00We didn't have like, the only thing
we had was one on one messaging.
10:04That's it.
Just think how antiquated that is.
10:06And that's what we launched with.
10:08So, around September,
I think it was Septemberish,
10:12maybe late August early September is,
a maybe when early October,
10:16actually I don't remember is one of
the launch messaging and it took off and
10:21it was intuitive to us why it
took off because a semester is so
10:25expensive back on those days right and
especially international semester.
10:30So if you had two people who were
living in two different countries,
10:33how did they communicate?
10:36Well, they could send each other SMS,
which was expensive.
10:39They could use Skype, but
Skype mostly worked on a desktop, so
10:42you had to like synchronize the time when
both of you are in front of a computer,
10:46and, you know, people usually are not.
10:48Like, some of you have computers open,
but if you get a Skype call now,
10:50you're not going to answer it, right.
10:52So, there was really no good way for
people to like communicate in real time.
10:58And so that's why SMS was so popular
because your phone was always with you,
11:01it was always in your pocket,
11:02it was always no matter where you
want your had your phone with you.
11:05So when you sent an SMS,
you never said, hey are you there?
11:09But you never did that.
11:09You'd just send an SMS.
11:11The only thing sometimes you could say is,
hey, did you get my message.
11:14Because SMS was so unreliable,
especially internationally.
11:17And so that was the other
problem that we could solve by
11:20building on top of TCP/IP is that we
could add reliability in our protocol.
11:24So, we rolled out messaging.
11:26We made it super reliable.
11:28We added all these visual indicators.
11:30We, if the message actually was
successfully delivered to our server.
11:33You knew if it was successfully delivered
to the device that you were sending it to,
11:37and it just took off.
11:39And, when Sam talks about like,
well, we kind of like When has down.
11:44Or we didn't go to conferences and
11:45when they didn't do a whole lot of other
stuff, it's just because we were lucky.
11:49We stumbled into something that
people really, really had a need for.
11:52Just think about as a mess,
back in 2006, 2007.
11:55Right?
11:56There was no iMessage,
nothing else worked on your phone.
12:01SMS was expensive.
12:02It was horrible limiting, you can
only send 160 characters at a time.
12:06And if you sent a longer message,
it would break it into multiple chunks.
12:09And sometimes the chunk at the bottom
would arrive first, so you'd have to read
12:12the message at the bottom and
then read the message on top after that.
12:17Media was horribly expensive and
it was not working well across platforms.
12:21So if I sent a video recorded on
Nokia phone to Blackberry users,
12:24it probably couldn't have watched it.
12:26Or if you send a video recording
on Blackberry to iPhone probably
12:29wouldn't work either.
12:30So we had all these limitations that meds
we're trying to address in our product and
12:36obviously the biggest problem was cost,
12:38meds was very expensive in Europe and in
many countries outside of North America.
12:43And we just kept going.
12:45So once we figured out
that there was a need for
12:47it, we were like well, we better hire.
12:49So we hired some of our
old friends from Yahoo,
12:53who left Yahoo,
some of our ex-Yahoo friends.
12:57I hired a friend of mine who I actually
met when I was working at Stanford
13:02like when I was doing IT at graduate
school of business in like, 96 97-ish,
13:06when I was in high school, so he came and
he helped work on the Blackberry client.
13:11So our goal was like,
we got to build all these features, but
13:14we also gotta build all these platforms.
13:16Because we started out with iPhone, but
the world back then was very different.
13:21Nokia actually was majority
smartphone platform back in the days.
13:26Not in North America, but if you kind
of looked at the rest of the world,
13:29everybody was using Nokia smartphones and
Blackberry.
13:32And Android, I think didn't even exist.
13:34It was just barely existed in
the end of 2009 and early 2010.
13:38So we had to build for Nokia, and
13:40we had to find people who could
actually build for Nokia Symbian S-60.
13:45And we had to find those people in Europe,
13:47because nobody in Silicon Valley
even heard of Nokia.
13:50So they went and found two really
good engineers to help us build that.
13:54Finally, a story about our Nokia client.
13:59It's actually built using Python.
14:02Not all our people know that actually
Nokia 60 has Python runtime.
14:05So remember when Brian, my cofounder,
started looking at Nokia.
14:10Because we knew that we had to do Nokia,
so he kind of went away for a week.
14:12He comes back a week later.
14:14He's like,
you're not going to believe this.
14:17You can use Python to build a client.
14:18And I was like, no way.
14:19Get out of here.
He was like, no, no, no, no.
14:20Seriously.
You can run Python on this little tiny
14:23phone.
14:24I was like okay let's try and
do it and that's what we did.
14:27The basic was the whole back end,
the communications and
14:30protocol was all in Python and
the UI was actually in C++.
14:33So we started working on
building multiple platforms and
14:37we started working on building features.
14:39So we launched Blackberry,
we launched Nokia 60.
14:43We launched Android all within
the two months of each other in 2010,
14:46and then we started building features.
14:48So, we had to build what
people asked us to build.
14:52People wanted group chat.
14:53Everybody's like, this is great.
14:55I love your product.
14:56I want to have a group conversation
with my family, or three friends,
15:00or five co-workers, or
ten people in a study group.
15:03And we're like, okay,
well how do we build group chat?
15:07Let's figure it out.
15:08So we'll sit down and sketch the user
experience then figure out how to make
15:12the back-end system work for group chat.
15:14And then people wanted, obviously
very quickly we added multimedia.
15:19And I think multimedia is what
really took us to the next level.
15:22Once we added ability to send a picture,
which.
15:25Today is like comical, how could you not
have the ability to send pictures through
15:29a messaging product over your smartphone?
15:31Back then you couldn't there was
nothing that worked really well.
15:34What was cheaper was reliable.
15:37So we added the ability
to send the picture,
15:38we added the ability to send videos.
15:40We at some point introduced voice
messages and then things just took off.
15:45And so at that point it was
just scaling the back end.
15:48And this is where it
kind of ties into what I
15:51was talking about earlier where me and
Brian worked at Yahoo.
15:55Because we spent so much time there and
because we were there in early days and
15:58we sold the company scale, we had all
this experience to scale the back end.
16:03And we had our own share of outages.
16:06And our service wasn't 100% perfect but
we would make sure that we would
16:11learn from an outage and make sure that we
would add the right monitoring in place.
16:15And we would have capacity always for
holidays like Christmas and
16:18New Years where there's a traffic spike.
16:20But having that experience
working at Yahoo,
16:23learning how to scale
the back-end systems.
16:26Learning how to tweak
the operating systems, the kernels,
16:28the networking stack.
16:29The ethernet driver if you have to,
it's all kind of tied together.
16:33So our experience at Yahoo,
our experience with difficult or
16:39challenging SMS protocol that we all use
as a consumer kind of all combined with
16:45this perfect timing that happened in 2009,
2010 with smartphones coming online and
16:49people wanting to have this
ability to communicate.
16:52And if you think about smartphone,
16:54the messaging is a killer app for
the smartphone.
16:58So we just basically stumbled
into this killer app.
17:02Because nothing else you do more
with a smartphone that communicate.
17:05Most of it is probably talking to your
friends and family and your loved ones.
17:09I message on WhatsApp or
Skype or anything else.
17:14Yes?
They guy [INAUDIBLE]
17:15>> Would you do it again?
17:17>> Could you make another
app that takes off?
17:19>> A messaging app or just an app?
17:21>> Just any app?
17:21>> I could.
17:23I'm not sure you can.
17:25>> [LAUGH]
>> I already did this once.
17:28I mean the chances of me being
successful again are like zero.
17:32So the odds are on your side.
17:34So you should go and do something.
17:37So that's why we're able to
actually spend all of our time
17:42heads down building a product because
we had this amazing product market fit.
17:47We had this amazing product
that people wanted.
17:50They were like, give me, give me, give me,
when we were all in and out Nokia S40
17:53which was just like a step below Nokia
S60 Which was kind of a picture phone.
17:59People were emailing us, asking for,
when is it going to be done,
18:03when is it going to be done,
when is it going to be done?
18:05And so,
there was a huge pent up demand for
18:08any platform before we would launch it.
18:10And so that why we didn't have
a need to go to the conference and
18:14do a lot of PR or do anything like that.
18:18Because we had people who needed
our product and we had like
18:21millions of people who were waiting for us
to build a new feature or a new platform.
18:24And that's why we were able to just
go heads down and build a product.
18:30So that was kind of like some background
that I wanted to give you on how we
18:32got started.
18:33We can do a q and a for
the next 15 to 20 minutes and yeah.
18:39>> The specific thing I want to hear most
about is how you dealt with the launch of
18:44iMessage and Facebook Messenger and
all the other messaging platforms.
18:48WhatsApp was clearly first, and
then the world got scary quickly.
18:53How did you think about that?
18:56[UNKNOWN
>> So, how do we think about imessage and
19:00all these other platforms.
19:02So, with iMessage we,
when did they launch?
19:07I think 2011 ish.
19:09Something like that.
19:10I think 2011 at the developer conference.
19:14So, the world in Silicon Valley is
very different from the world outside.
19:19So in Silicon Valley if you look around,
90% of people have an iPhone.
19:23Not only do they have an iPhone,
they have the latest, greatest iPhone.
19:29Outside of silicon valley,
it's like 80 or 90% Android, right?
19:34So for us, having an iMessage launch was
just like a small blip on the radar.
19:40>> [INAUDIBLE]
>> So Facebook Messenger so
19:46I think Facebook for a very long time
didn't really have a good messaging story.
19:50I remember they bought this company called
Beluga which I think it was Beluga that
19:55was group messaging so they were kind
of focused on group messaging at first.
19:58And then they shut it down and
turn it into Facebook Messenger.
20:02But Facebook Messenger was
part of the Facebook app.
20:04It wasn't really a dedicated
app back in the days.
20:08But ultimately, if you look at
a Facebook Messenger, the graph that
20:12the Facebook Messenger is using is very
different from the graph on your phone.
20:16And if you think about people you add to
your address book and people on Facebook,
20:22there is going to be some overlap but
the most part is going to be different.
20:27So people who I add on Facebook are
probably not people I'm going to message
20:30with a lot.
20:31And people who I put in my address book,
people who are probably
20:35a different graph in terms of like
how they are important to me and
20:40if I urge you into my, basically if
I exchange my number with somebody,
20:45it means that you give them the ability
to WhatsApp me, SMS me or call me.
20:49There are probably of people who are I'm
friend with in Facebook who called me,
20:55I will probably like, who is this, yeah
we met each other once and I added them.
21:02I'm probably not necessarily
a typical example.
21:05I mean, I'm sure there are people who have
different grabs on different networks.
21:09I'm sure there are people who
use WhatsApp only for work and
21:12they only have their coworkers on
the WhatsApp, in their address book.
21:17And i'm sure that there
are people who only
21:20have certain set of their
contacts in one or the other.
21:24But I think overall this idea of like
well if I add you to my phone I give you
21:28permission to interrupt my life is what
makes our network a little different.
21:32Because people have these connections
21:36that are stronger with people who they
have in each other's address book.
21:40With Facebook,
I have people I went to high school with,
21:42I have people I went to university with.
21:44And it's great that I can keep in
touch with them on Facebook but
21:47I wouldn't want them to call me out
of the blue at 7:00 pm it would be
21:50awkward because I haven't
talked to them for years.
21:53So the graphs are different
in that sense so
21:58we always had kind of going back and
generalizing it.
22:01We'll always have competition
from day one, there was actually
22:05a point in time where there was a new
messaging app popping up like every month.
22:09And every month there was
an article on Tech Crunch how this
22:12awesome new messaging app was going to
take down all other messaging apps.
22:16And I don't know if they paid
Tech Crunch to write it or what.
22:19[LAUGH] And we would just read this and
we would go like, they have no users.
22:22How can you write that
story in Tech Crunch.
22:24It just makes no sense.
22:26And obviously we didn't want to say
anything because we didn't want
22:28to draw attention to ourselves.
22:29But actually on purpose tried
to stay under the radar.
22:34It was trying to see this from
the sidelines, all this kind of like,
22:38dog and pony show that
happened with all these apps.
22:41I mean there was ping me, there was
message me, there was group me, there was
22:46skigs, there were like, hello, there were
like ten different messaging apps at some
22:50point, which kept getting all this
publicity and we were like good for you.
22:54Have all the publicity you want,
we'll just stay under the radar and
22:57not have any attention drawn to us.
23:00So we'll always have competition be it big
guys like Imessage of Facebook messenger,
23:04be it little guys like kick.
23:05We always have competition.
23:07Even today we still have apps like
Telegram out there, and Line, and Cow.
23:13But we said that our destiny
is really in our hands.
23:16We can't worry too much about competition.
23:19We have to worry about our product and
our users.
23:21And if we spend a lot of time
thinking about competition and
23:24looking at competition,
we're going to fail, yeah?
23:28So trying to build on what you just
talked about, this social graph.
23:31I mean, I feel like this whole
social graph is actually now
23:36changing like I mean,
at least among me and my friends.
23:41I think I don't call people so much.
23:43I don't really send them SMS.
23:46I will probably at people mostly on this
social media, like online, Facebook.
23:50I could add that or like chat apps
like it's what said it more, but
23:53if you feel like this
whole social graph and
23:55this social changing slowly because people
call less and people send SMS less.
24:01People like to do it more on
this social media platforms.
24:05Do you have a view on that and
24:06do you think there's any
like opportunity on that?
24:11Or do you think this
shift is even true or?
24:14>> I think, yeah, I think true,
so the question was,
24:19how, so the world is changing,
people call less, and
24:23now like people add the social networks
all kind of merge into one now.
24:31Yeah, you're right,
I think people call less these days, and
24:33people mostly message each other.
24:37I don't really know if we would
do anything differently today,
24:42or even back then.
24:44I think for us, the focus has always been
on well, we want to provide a utility,
24:49we want to provide an application that
is purely, only about communication.
24:54So if you look at some other
apps like V-Chat or Line or
24:58Kakao because they do a lot
of different things, right?
25:00You can like order taxes through V-Chat
and you can follow people online,
25:03like Line has a whole feed concept.
25:05And we always wanted to build something
that is really, really efficient and
25:09utilitarian and also fast and reliable.
25:13I mean, not a lot of people can have the
latest and greatest smart phone, right?
25:16A lot of people have android
phones that are low end.
25:19A lot of people have, or
used to have Blackberry phones
25:22that didn't have a lot of horse power and
a lot of memory and a lot of CPU, so for
25:25us it was always about reliability and
efficiency of the app and not trying to do
25:29all these different things that a lot of
different social networks and apps do.
25:33Yeah?
25:38>> How do you think about Messenger right
now, because now that Messenger integrated
25:43a lot of the features that's WhatsApp had,
I am starting to use Messenger a lot more.
25:47And that definitely takes away
from the internal WhatsApp, so
25:50do you have internal competition?
25:52>> No, I think internal there is still
a lot of room for both apps to grow.
25:58I think messenger is really strong
in countries like North America,
26:00like the United States for example.
26:02So I think they compliment
each other geographically.
26:05So I think if you look at countries
like India, or Israel, or
26:09Hong Kong, or Germany, or Spain.
26:13WhatsApp has really strong
foothold in those countries and
26:16I think if you look at
something like Australia or
26:18North America you're probably going to
see Messenger do really well.
26:20So a lot of it is also not
necessarily split by a graph, but
26:24also by the country you're in.
26:26Okay.
26:28>> I appreciate the humility that you
couldn't do it again with another app,
26:32but I'm sure people asked you
all the time for help or advice.
26:35How do you determine if you're on idea or
26:38look at an application
it can do really well?
26:40How do you think through that?
26:44>> It's very simple.
26:44The question is how do you determine if
an app has a potential or is a good idea?
26:55It has to solve a really basic problem and
it has to do it in a really simple and
26:59efficient way.
27:00I mean going back to what we built,
we in some ways solved a problem, right?
27:06People had a problem communicating when
they were not in the same room, when they
27:11were in different cities, or in different
countries, or in different time zones.
27:14And so,
it's not that it wasn't impossible.
27:19It was just, it was hard, and
27:20it was expensive, and
we made it easier and cheaper.
27:24And when you offer something
to people that is easier and
27:29the cheaper people of course, will use it.
27:32So I think it's the number one thing to
look at for me when I look at a product,
27:37does it solve a need and does it solve
a need on a global scale, right?
27:40If you solve a need for
people on Stanford campus,
27:43that's great, but can it scale to
a billion or 2 billion people.
27:46So we need it for the only people only in
Silicon Valley by providing them charges
27:50for their Teslas, great, how many
people have Teslas in the world, right?
27:54It's gotta be a global, actually a lot
of people have Teslas, I don't know.
27:58>> [LAUGH]
>> But it's gotta be a global solution
28:01that applies to everybody in
every country potentially, right?
28:05And so, that was kind of like.
28:07>> [INAUDIBLE] Sorry to get
wrong as instead Silicon Valley,
28:11everyone's got the iPhone 7S or
whatever we're on now.
28:15How did you build that into the culture of
the company to think about your users all
28:20around the world?
28:24I don't know.
28:26We got lucky with the people we hired.
28:28And that was the other thing that I didn't
mention that I should've mentioned.
28:32We ended up with a really
incredible team that we
28:37mostly hired out of our personal network
from ex-Yahoo and from friends of friends.
28:44I think ourselves had
a really good understanding.
28:47I mean me and myself being an immigrant
and growing up in other country and
28:50going to all these other countries,
28:52I understood that there was more
to smartphone than just iPhone.
28:58That was the thing everybody talked
about and wrote about in 2008 and 2009.
29:03It's like for me, especially as
somebody who really liked Nokia phones,
29:07before Nokia went out of business,
I was like, We've got to build for Nokia,
29:11because they're great phones, and there
is like a billion smartphones out there.
29:16So I think, just me and my co-founder,
having that perspective,
29:22probably just goes through the company,
and people understood that.
29:25Hey, you don't want to just build for
iPhones.
29:28You don't want to just build for
the latest and greatest.
29:30You have all these millions of phones
out there, billions of phones out there,
29:35that you've gotta build for because you
want those users to be using your product.
29:38And they also are asking us to do that.
29:42Yeah?
>> Can you talk about the business side as
29:44far as incorporation,
equity and raising money?
29:48A business side my favorite topic, sure.
29:55So we incorporated on my birthday
on February 24th of 2009.
30:02And the reason like the thinking that
was going through, so let me back up.
30:08We were trying to submit an app
into the Apple Store and
30:11I didn't want to do it under my own name.
30:13I didn't want the app to say
you Coon because I figured like
30:17who would want to submit
an app made by some guy.
30:19So I figured we should
probably be more official,
30:21we should have a company,
okay, so go to Google.
30:25How do you start a company,
right, it's just step one.
30:30So I got a friend of mine,
he was an insurance broker,
30:36so he had his own company and
30:38he was like 3 blocks away from
me in Santa Clara where I live.
30:43And so, I went to his office because I
used to buy insurance for my car and
30:48my house from him and so, I was like dude
how did you incorporate he is like it easy
30:53you take these articles on corporation
it's like one page was like five things
30:56written and you go to San Francisco
to the State Building, the secretary
31:02of the state or whatever and you give
them $100 and they stamp and you're done.
31:05I'm like no way it can't be that easy,
he said yeah, it's that easy,
31:09I'm like all right, so we had to submit
an app and they wanted us to show.
31:13Like Apple Store actually
wanted us to send them a copy
31:16of the incorporation articles.
31:18So it was like, okay, easy.
31:22I have nothing to do that day,
I'll drive to San Francisco, get lunch,
31:25go to his office, get a stamp,
Get a letter great.
31:29Send it to Apple.
31:30They look at the letters,
like yup, you're legit,
31:32you're a company, you can now
submit under the name WhatsApp.
31:34I'm like cool.
31:35Submitted an app under the name WhatsApp.
31:37So that was how we incorporated.
31:39In terms of, in terms of,
it's easier than it sounds,
31:44like a struggle for me,
because I've never done it.
31:47How did we think about money or
the whole funding thing.
31:51So we left Yahoo with some savings,
31:58because Yahoo did really well in late 90s,
early 2000s.
32:01And so we had stock,
we had options, we had our issues.
32:06And so I was actually able
to not only take a year off,
32:10obviously not do anything extravagant.
32:12But like live off my savings for a year.
32:15And then I had enough money to where
32:17while I was still tinkering around with
an app and we didn't have exuberant costs.
32:22I actually remember like when we started
out I was using my buddy's server,
32:26this guy Chuck,
who also used to work at Yahoo.
32:30He used to run Yahoo Sports.
32:32So I used to sit next to the Yahoo
sports teams, so we became friends.
32:35So I was like hey chuck
can I use your server?
32:37I don't want to pay 20$ a month for
a server, he's like yeah sure.
32:39So like you know, saving $20 a month
on a server was a big deal for me.
32:44So we would run original on his server.
32:46And I remember at some point
launched messaging and
32:49I saw all this growth and he's like
dude you got to get your own servers.
32:51I'm like no I don't want to pay for
my own servers.
32:54No you got to get your own servers.
32:55You're taking up all this CPU and
bandwidth.
32:58I'm like no no no I'm fine.
33:00So eventually he kicked
me out of his server.
33:04And which was great because we
were switching from Linux to
33:08which would allow them to
have the experience at Yahoo.
33:12And so what we were able to actually,
for a long time live off of our savings.
33:17And since we had all of this
33:20experience on run the company
efficiently when it comes to servers and
33:23backend and bandwidth and everything,
there was not a lot of expense.
33:26The expense started when
we had to go hire people,
33:30and the idea was that okay,
we going to have to pay for
33:35bandwidths, we going to have to pay for
Banbros, we going to have to pay for
33:37SMS verification because to sign up on
WhatsApp you have to verify your number.
33:42And, we did a small angel round,
33:47I can't even remember,
I think it was end of 2009.
33:52We did a small angel round, and
33:54then we basically kind of kept our company
running without losing too much money,
33:59because in the early days,
iPhone app was actually paid.
34:03The people had to pay one
dollar to download iPhone app.
34:06While everything else was free like
Android and Blackberry and Nokia.
34:09And so we had people paying for
iPhone app and that kind of went to,
34:15it gave us the ability to pay for the
bill, for electricity for bandwidth bills,
34:20for several bills and all that stuff.
34:26And I think probably around 2010, 2011.
34:28People started knocking on our door.
34:30We didn't even went out to look for money.
34:33Which is a great situation to be in.
34:35because if you are going to go raise,
and you need money,
34:38you probably are not going
to get the terms you want.
34:41Which was, for us was,
kind of worked in our favor because
34:46all these receipts started
coming to us and they're like.
34:50Because they're doing great
34:51we want to partner with you
we want to give you money.
34:53And we're like eh we don't really need it.
34:55Which makes them want
to invest even more so
35:00we kind of did this dance where we're like
no no we don't really want your money.
35:04Come back in a few months and eventually
after all these conversations me and
35:08Brian sit down and we're like okay well.
35:10We just wasted their time and
35:11our time, should we just take funding or
should we not.
35:14And we decided we should because it's
35:17better to have money in your bank
account for your business or not.
35:21And that's the words of wisdom that I
got from Jeff Who because Jeff was like
35:26if you can have money in your bank account
you should have money in your bank account
35:28because you never know if you have to buy.
35:30In building or
35:31if your netted to buy some office space
because you started growing too quickly.
35:34And you don't want to negotiate and
raise money when it's too late.
35:37Like, you want to do it
when you don't need money.
35:40So listening to words of
wisdom of Jeff Ralston,
35:43we were like, okay, let's get some
funding and we partnered with Seguin and
35:47we got money from
Sequoia Any other questions?
35:52Yeah?
>> Could you sort of walk us through your
35:55internal psychology and confidence
over the trajectory of the company?
35:59At the beginning, did you identify that
the market timing was pretty spot on, or
36:04were you just sort of following
what your users were saying to you?
36:12>> I think until we did messaging,
when we doing that status feature,
36:18obviously it was rough because we had
no users, and nobody using our product.
36:25And so you're sitting there In
your room building a product and
36:30thinking like well, nobody wants to buy.
36:34Why am I doing this?
36:34What is the meaning of life and
all that stuff, right?
36:36And so you kind of like it's stuff.
36:39When you're building a product that people
don't really want, you feel rejected.
36:42You feel like, why aren't you using it?
36:44It's great, I put all my energy in it.
36:49So once we added messaging,
it was like 180 degrees difference.
36:56All of a sudden everybody
wants our product.
36:58Everybody thinks it's
the coolest thing ever.
36:59We get all these letters into
our own email, in-boxes.
37:04All these emails from people
saying how great your product is.
37:07I'm able to keep in touch with my fiance.
37:09I got married because of your product.
37:11Your product helped me save lives
because the hikers were lost and
37:15the hikers were able to use
WhatsApp share location to send.
37:17It's just night and day.
37:19When people want your product, and
37:21they love your product, the psychology
inside a company is just different.
37:25People would come to work, and they'd be
like we're building the best thing ever.
37:29People loves the product.
37:30This is great.
37:31And so, we didn't really have to do
a lot of selling even to the candidates.
37:34Like, people who came in to interview
with us basically fell into two counts.
37:40People who live sole bubble and never
heard of WhatsApp and they'll be like,
37:43where would I work for WhatsApp?
37:45And people who kind of fell into like,
well, there is a whole world out there
37:48bubble, and they were like, you guys have
millions of users, like my cousin in Spain
37:51or my friend in Germany was telling me
about your product and everybody uses it.
37:55Or people would say, I went to India or
I went to Middle East and
37:58everybody uses your product.
37:58It's like amazing how come
nobody heard about you?
38:00And they're like, well, that's on purpose.
38:02And so basically like these two types
of people would with intro and so
38:06obviously people who were had it
like the silicone valley bubble.
38:09They don't even want to come work for us.
38:11Which is not the end of the world because
there were plenty of people who understood
38:14there was a whole big world out there.
38:16And they were happy to build product for
38:18hundreds of millions of
users all over the world.
38:23Yeah.
[INAUDIBLE]
38:24>> How was the fundraising experience
38:29[INAUDIBLE].
38:32Why did I partner with Sequoia?
38:38So we had a few companies
give us term sheets.
38:42One of them even gave
us a blank term sheet.
38:43They're like,
fill out the number you want.
38:45>> [LAUGH]
>> And we're like, well, if they're that,
38:49that irresponsible with
other people's money,
38:54we shouldn't do that,
shouldn't be partnering with that.
38:58Sequoia is just an amazing brand, right?
39:01For me,
living in Silicon Valley since 1992 and
39:07reading articles, and seeing news about
all these companies that have gone public,
39:12like Netscape, and Sysco, and Google, and
39:17knowing that a lot of them were backed
by Sequoia just made it not a very
39:24difficult decision to pick Sequoia Well,
I also really like people who work there.
39:29A lot of it was just personal chemistry.
39:32A lot of it is the C company understanding
how much to be hands on or not.
39:39Like Sequoia was actually really
great about, they knew the numbers,
39:43they knew we were growing.
39:45They didn't meddle, right?
39:46They didn't need to come in and
say you guys are doing this wrong or
39:49doing that wrong,
there was no need for that.
39:52And I think we had that understanding
upfront, where they kind of made us
39:56a promise they were like,
we're here to help you financially.
40:01We're not here to help
you with management.
40:03We're not here to help you write code.
40:04We're not here to help you build features.
40:06We're here just to help you grow and
to help you financially.
40:09And if you need any help outside of that,
come knock on our door and
40:12we'll try to help.
40:13And they were really helpful with stuff
when we asked, like recruiting or
40:17anything like that.
40:18They would sometimes meet with
prospective candidates and
40:20tells them why they should join WhatsApp.
40:22So Sequoia was really great,
it was a brand.
40:26And I remember, actually,
when we have multiple term sheets.
40:29Me and
Brian went to Jeff Roston's house and
40:32we were talking to him,
it was late in the evening.
40:35We were trying to just get
advice on what we should do and
40:37he kind of looked at all them.
40:38And we talked through
all the different terms.
40:40And then he kind of said,
once you're a Sequoia company,
40:42you 're a Sequoia company.
40:43It's that branding is really strong and
it means a lot.
40:48>> I have an important one.
40:50>> Yes, what?
40:51>> [LAUGH].
40:52>> [INAUDIBLE] for you, but-
>> How did you get your first few thousand
40:56users back in the day and set the status?
40:58>> Well, how did we get our
first few thousand users?
41:01So, there was no apps back then.
41:04And iOS, well it wasn't iOS back then,
it was iPhone OS.
41:11And the Apple Store had
this category What's New.
41:14And the trick was to submit
a new app every few days, so
41:19you would always show up
on top of What's New.
41:23And you would make a small
change to the name.
41:25Because I think back in the old days,
41:27the name difference
triggered you as a new app.
41:31So it would basically have status and then
it would say status for your smartphone,
41:36or status for your calls, or status for
your iPhone, or updated status.
41:40We would basically tweak the name a little
bit with every new version we submit.
41:45Which always kept us almost always
at the top of the New category.
41:49And since there are no apps, people would
go to What's New category all the time
41:53to download, to try to download
whatever people would build.
41:56Because today you have thousands of apps,
back days you had hundreds.
42:01And basically by gaming the system
a little bit, we were able to.
42:05I think that loophole got
closed really quickly, but
42:08luckily by that time we
already had messaging.
42:11Yeah?
42:11>> How did you scale up your company,
I mean,
42:14how do you scale up WhatsApp
into different countries?
42:19>> How do we scale into
different countries?
42:21We didn't have to scale.
42:23Well, we did have to do a couple
of things, I take that back.
42:26So, there were two things
that we had to do.
42:29One, we had to build different platforms.
42:31Because there were some countries
where iPhones just didn't exist.
42:33And everybody was using either Nokia or
Blackberry or a combination of two.
42:38The second thing that we started
doing early on is focusing on
42:41localization, right?
42:43So again, this kind of goes back to
Silicon Valley bubble where everybody in
42:46Silicon Valley speaks English.
42:48Therefore, the rest of the world
must speak English, not quite.
42:51So, we focused early on localization.
42:55We actually hired people internally into
the company who were doing two things.
43:00They were customer support
representatives, so
43:02they would help people with problems and
write FAQs and help debug issues.
43:05But they were also all multilingual.
43:08So we'd hire somebody who
was perfect in Spanish, and
43:10we would hire somebody who
was perfect in German.
43:11And we'd hire somebody who is
perfect in Portuguese, and
43:14we would hire somebody who
was perfect in Italian.
43:16We would hire somebody who was perfect in
all these languages where our apps were
43:20starting to grow.
43:21So we could build a really good,
localized experience.
43:24So when you download WhatsApp in Brazil,
it's not in English, it's in Portuguese.
43:29And I think that is what helped
us grow in all these countries.
43:32Yeah.
43:34>> How did you convince your first few
employees I know that they came from your
43:38personal network.
43:39But how did you convince them to join you?
43:41>> It wasn't hard,
most of them were unemployed.
43:45>> [LAUGH]
>> So let me see, so
43:50Brian joined, so Brian left Yahoo.
43:54And he, I think, didn't really do
anything, I think he left in 98.
43:58So he didn't really do anything for
ten years.
44:01He was one of the early app engineers.
44:02>> [LAUGH]
>> So that was one.
44:05Chris, my friend, who went up to Stanford.
44:07I think he was doing this startup
that wasn't really going anywhere,.
44:11And he was in LA, and
44:12he got married to this wonderful girl
who's parents are actually from here.
44:17So, I think for her it was an advantage
to move here to be closer to her parents.
44:21So I'm like yeah, yeah, you guys should
move, you guys should move here,
44:24move back to northern California.
44:26So the combination of her wanting to
move to be closer to her parents and
44:30him not really doing anything not having
a full time job also contributed.
44:36This guy Eugene who was one of our early
hires, he was working at a company,
44:40I actually knew him through my social
network, we are still friends.
44:45And he would always complained how
he hated his job and how there were
44:48trying to **** him over by promising
him stock options and never delivering.
44:52He hated it, so I'm like, well,
here's a good opportunity.
44:57Let's see what else.
45:00We hired this guy Michael who was in New
York, wasn't really doing anything also.
45:05So, he was a referral through
a friend of mine from Yahoo.
45:09So there was this guy Michael Radman
who I used to work with at Yahoo,
45:12who was working at a startup,
and we would keep in touch.
45:15And at some point I was complaining to him
how hard it is to find good engineers that
45:19are smart and
45:19capable and can get **** done and
don't just sit there and theorize.
45:23And he was like, I know a guy,
calls this guy Michael in New York.
45:26And so we randomly call this guy
Michael in New York, and I'm like, hey,
45:29Michael, I got your name
from other Michael.
45:31Do you want to come and interview?
45:32And I figured he would say no,
I'm pretty happy in New York.
45:34But he wasn't really doing much,
he was like, yeah, okay.
45:37So he came in and interviewed.
45:38And so we had, let's see.
45:42We had one of the guys,
one of our engineers was in Russia,
45:44it was this guy Igor.
45:47He wasn't really doing
much in Russia also,
45:48it's not like they have
Silicon Valley in Russia.
45:50>> [LAUGH]
>> So
45:51we were like this band of outcasts
in some way, the group of people who
45:55weren't really doing much who got
together and built a product.
46:00But there were also people who were
working full time who we actually had to
46:04try really hard to convince to join.
46:06One of the guys, Rick,
who helped us a lot with the backend
46:09as we were scaling the backend,
he was working at Yahoo.
46:13And so I think it took us six months
of meetings and dinners with me and
46:17Brian trying to convince him.
46:19And we would meet him, and
we would do it in a very subtle way.
46:21Not like, come join us.
46:23We were like, we have all these users and
we have all this gear.
46:27And we knew he was really, really
technical and he loved solving problems.
46:30So we weren't saying come join us and
we'll give you lots of money or
46:34options or whatever.
46:36We were playing a different angle
where we're saying, hi Rick,
46:38if you're watching this.
46:39We were like, hey Rick, we're having all
these technical problems, and we did.
46:43And we're like, we just don't know,
there's this weird issue with FreeBSD 8
46:47where it computes for
kernel resources with Erlang.
46:50And Erlang is trying to
run on these 48 cores, and
46:52we don't know how there's some
contention in the kernel.
46:55If only we could figure it out,
we just need some help.
46:58And we knew that he loved doing
this kind of stuff, right?
47:01So with him, we played a different angle.
47:03It took us a few months to convince him,
but
47:04eventually he joined and he helped us
fix a lot of bottlenecks in our system.
47:07So there were all different stories, but
I think the bulk of the initial kind of
47:13core of people who joined, they were from
our professional and personal networks.
47:19>> We are out of time, unfortunately.
47:20>> Man,
I can keep going as long as [INAUDIBLE].
47:23>> All right, if you got
>> All right,
47:26we'll go to one more question.
47:27Thank you.
47:28>> Sir.
47:29>> I think what's happening, sir,
role model will get off being focused.
47:34I want to understand your decision making
process when you get feedback from users.
47:39How you define its said
noise to your product,
47:43how you define,
it's a key feature we need to improve.
47:47And how you find out that
the efficiency of communicating is
47:52a core feature you wanted focus on for
so many years.
47:56>> How do we know what features to
build and what features not to build?
47:59And you're absolutely right.
48:01Because in the early days, people would
write in and say, we want usernames so
48:04we want PINs.
48:05Because people were so conditioned by all
these messaging apps that came before us
48:09that you need to have a username or PIN.
48:11So if you were using BBM or
if you were using ICQ,
48:14you have some random PIN that you
would have to exchange with people.
48:17Or if you were using Skype or Yahoo
Messenger, you had to have a username.
48:21And people didn't understand
that what we were building was
48:23this whole new idea of like you
don't need any other stuff.
48:27You just sign up with your number,
48:29and it's connected to your phone that
has the same phone number, and you go.
48:32And so in early days, a lot of feedback
we took from users was useful.
48:36They're like, we want groups,
we want multimedia, we want
48:39to have additional privacy controls,
we want to turn off our last seen.
48:43Great, we built a lot
of what people asked.
48:45But we also didn't build what people asked
because we didn't think it was the right
48:48fit for our product.
48:49Having the fundamental belief and the gut
feeling that what you're doing is right,
48:54and having that vision of,
it's just going to work.
48:58I'm going to build it using phone numbers.
49:00I'm not going to have usernames,
49:01I'm not going to have PINs because
it makes product more complicated.
49:04It makes product harder to use,
people forget their usernames and
49:07PINs and all that stuff.
49:09Having that belief in yourself,
49:11and knowing that what you're building is
going to work is obviously also important.
49:18So that's kind of how we
would make decisions.
49:23>> Okay, you go, and
then we'll take that for the 1 PM class.
49:27>> Yeah?
>> Yeah.
49:28What do you feel about security issue or
future security issue of Messenger app?
49:34>> What do I feel about security issue or
future security issue?
49:36For us, well, as you know we
rolled out into an encryption.
49:41And we weren't the first ones to do it,
49:44obviously there were apps before
us that focused on security.
49:48But we were the first ones to
do it on such a global scale for
49:50everybody seamlessly, right?
49:52I mean there was no other app today that
has more than a billion people that has
49:56end to end encryption enabled by
default into everything you do,
49:59individual chats, group chats,
and everything else.
50:02So, we didn't start out.
50:05Again, this kind of goes back
to what we started with.
50:08It was just a pure one-on-one messaging,
right?
50:10There was no group chat,
there was no multimedia,
50:12there was no enter an encryption,
there was no video callings,
50:14there was no voice phones,
there was none of that.
50:16But over years, we made a commitment to
our users that we were going to add all
50:19these features, and we were going to make
them work, and make them work really well.
50:23And so obviously, we feel strong is
that encryption is important and
50:27we feel strongly about Internet
encryption which is why we added it and
50:30which is why we have it
in our application today.
50:34>> Great, thank you so much.
50:35>> Thank you.
>> [APPLAUSE]
🎥 Related Videos
![Welp, Here's what the Fed *Just* Said [Fed FOMC Minutes]](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2Fl8u23oq1E9E%2Fhqdefault.jpg&w=3840&q=75)
🔥 Recently Summarized Examples
4 Steps to Master Any Complex Skill (quickly)
40 Years of Fitness Experience in Less Than 11 Minutes.
Gun Controlling Media Makes FATAL Mistake... They Have Tied Their Fate To Biden's & Gun Rights Win
GET READY! Palantir Is Officially The Next Nvidia.
Abundant Thinking: The Hidden Key to Get Everything You Want (Audiobook)