[001sky]

“At every company that sells ads, a significant portion of their engineering team spends their day tuning data mining, writing better code to collect all your personal data, upgrading the servers that hold all the data and making sure it’s all being logged and collated and sliced and packaged and shipped out… And at the end of the day the result of it all is a slightly different advertising banner in your browser or on your mobile screen. Remember, when advertising is involved you the user are the product.” [Koum's emphasis.]

And that is just one reason why a Whatsapp/Facebook acquisition would be a surprise. At other times, Koum has been public about his distaste for startups that sell out quickly. “Totally agree with Vinod Khosla,” he wrote in July. “People starting companies for a quick sale are a disgrace to the valley.” (He’s also, btw, noted that getting on TC shouldn’t be a goal in itself. Too true.)

-- Sounds like another loss for the good side.