[throwaway6497]

Is David expecting Acton to show gratitude that Facebook bestowed him billions of dollars? Did Facebook do charity or was it doing business purchasing WhatsApp? If you believe in markets, then Facebook purchased WhatsApp by paying what they considered a fair value to keep it off the hands of Google. They paid a pretty penny but it is all business.

Also, walking away from ~ $850 mil and investing time and money into Signal speaks a lot about Brian's commitment to privacy. He admits he was a sellout. He didn't mince words but David's last paragraph, Facebook being all about people but not about selling-things/entertaining/helping-find-information is disingenuous. Facebook is all about sucking in people's attention, so they can sell ads. They want to suck as much information about people as possible; entertain you as much as possible with mindless video and photo sharing. There is nothing wrong with a business making money. David shouldn't delude himself and others into believing Facebook is holier than almost any other business. I guess, he has to keep up the pretenses as an exec. sigh!

[1ark]

If he was so principled, he shouldn't have sold his business to a company who's principles are exact opposite of those of his own. And then be sour when they provide liquidity of said business, unable to prove his ideas, and then attacking the company afterwards.

It's obviously good he found a place where his own principles are more inline with the company.

[clay_the_ripper]

He admits freeely that he sold out and has expressed public regret for doing what he did. He’s also committed something like 1 billion dollars to charity and drives a minivan.

All things considered, seems like a pretty good dude who saw an opportunity to create enough wealth that 10 generations down the line will be taken care of and he took it. Can’t say I would do any different and I doubt many others would either.