Techmeme: ‘Early’ WhatsApp Employees Will Make $160 Million Each (Nicholas Carlson/Business Insider)

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February 21, 2014, 7:55 AM

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Amir Efrati / The Information:

Google Was Willing to Beat Facebook's $19B Offer for WhatsApp — Last week, Google CEO Larry Page met with WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum in a last-ditch effort to prevent the rapidly growing messaging app from selling itself to Facebook, according to three people involved in the deal.

More: The Next Web, Valleywag, BGR, SlashGear, Cult of Mac, eWeek, Mercury News, Bloomberg, Ubergizmo, TechnoBuffalo, Business Insider, AppleInsider, Guardian, The Switch, Mobile Marketing Watch, the rajam report and Engadget

Tweets: @pkafka, @startupljackson, @ericnewcomer and @amir

Thanks:@ericnewcomer

Mike Isaac / Re/code:

Facebook's WhatsApp Deal Could Jumpstart Internet.org Plans — What's cooler than $19 billion? How about changing the world? — Mark Zuckerberg took a step closer to realizing a dream to bring the Internet to everyone on the planet with Facebook's $19 billion acquisition of mobile messaging service WhatsApp on Wednesday.

More: NYT Bits. Tweets: @jonrussell

Evelyn M. Rusli / Wall Street Journal:

WhatsApp: the Bomb That Shook Silicon Valley — On Wednesday afternoon, in a modern office building in San Francisco, entrepreneur Daniel Raffel saw a news alert cross his phone: Facebook Inc. had just paid $19 billion for messaging startup WhatsApp. — The founder of mobile app Snapguide …

Tweets: @borthwick, @wsjd, @jonrussell, @elie_h and @monkbent

Liz Gannes / Re/code:

Before Facebook Deal, WhatsApp Was Helping BuzzFeed and Shazam Go Viral With New Platform Tools — Unlike mobile messaging competitors like Line and WeChat, WhatsApp has taken a resolute stance against becoming a platform that distributes games and other apps.

More: ParisLemon, Wired, Nieman Journalism Lab, POPSUGAR, Quartz, Gawker, DealBook and Benedict Evans

Tweets: @buzzfeedben, @mattbuchanan and @lheron

See also Mediagazer

Nicholas Carlson / Business Insider:

‘Early’ WhatsApp Employees Will Make $160 Million Each — Yesterday, Facebook bought messaging app WhatsApp for $19 billion — $12 billion in stock, $4 billion in cash, and another $3 billion in stock grants for employees that will vest over the next four years. — How much will WhatsApp's employees make in the deal?

More: Gawker, TechCrunch, Forbes, POPSUGAR, BBC and Valleywag

Kara Swisher / Re/code:

Q&A With Sequoia's Jim Goetz on Wassssup With the WhatsApp Deal — So I lobbed in a call to Sequoia Capital this morning to get its VC-of-the-moment Jim Goetz's take on the blockbuster deal in which Facebook forked over $19 billion dollars to buy one of its portfolio companies, WhatsApp.

More: PE Hub Blog, TechCrunch, CNN, PandoDaily and Fortune. Tweets: @hanelly

Peter Lauria / BuzzFeed:

Mark Zuckerberg Comes Of Age As A Mogul

More: New Yorker, San Francisco Chronicle, DealBook, Reuters, AdAge, UnleashThePhones, Slate, TechnoBuffalo and Snarkmarket. Tweets: @peterlauria3

Wall Street Journal:

Koum and Zuckerberg differ sharply in their approaches to advertising and privacy

Tweets: @dmac1

Adam Bryant / New York Times:

Satya Nadella, Chief of Microsoft, on His New Role — This interview with Satya Nadella, the new chief executive of Microsoft, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant. — Q. What leadership lessons have you learned from your predecessor, Steve Ballmer?

More: Inquirer, The Verge, Gigaom, Digits, Quartz, Business Insider and WinBeta

Tweets: @deantak, @marypcbuk, @nytcorneroffice, @trengriffin and @benthepcguy

Thanks:@petewootton

Matt Brian / Engadget:

New Google WiFi app could automatically log you into Starbucks and other private hotspots — Google is working on a new WiFi app that could take a lot of the drudgery out of accessing wireless hotspots. According to our sources, the search giant has built Android and iOS versions of an app …

More: Softpedia News, Phandroid, Android Community, TechnoBuffalo, BGR, Electronista, iPhone Hacks, App Advice, iDownloadBlog.com …, everythingiCafe, Droid Life and 9to5Google

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Sources say Amazon readying an Android-based Web TV box competing with Apple TV and Roku, for March rollout — Amazon Gets Its TV Box Ready, Again — Amazon is gearing up to take on Apple and Roku, again. — Industry sources say Amazon is getting ready to launch a Web TV box …

More: TechCrunch, The Verge and Gizmodo

Brad Stone / Businessweek:

Invasion of the Taxi Snatchers: Uber Leads an Industry's Disruption — Ray Markovich started driving a taxi in Chicago three years ago after shuttering his struggling wireless phone store. Driving a cab wasn't particularly gratifying or lucrative—he had to pay $400 a week just to lease his 2011 white Ford Escape.

Tweets: @valleyhack, @bw, @erickecage, @nytimesbits and @jamesappell

Tom Warren / The Verge:

More Cortana details: Siri/Google Now-like virtual assistant to replace Bing search feature in Windows Phone 8.1 — Apple has Siri, and Microsoft is about to get Cortana — Microsoft has been in a state of “shut up and ship” with Windows Phone for more than a year now.

More: InfoWorld, PC World, Electronista, GeekWire, Engadget, Gizmodo, BGR, TechnoBuffalo, SlashGear, TechCrunch and WebProNews. Tweets: @chrismessina

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Google Launches Project Tango Smartphone To Experiment With Computer Vision And 3D Sensors — Google today announced Project Tango, an Android-based prototype 5″ phone and developer kit with advanced 3D sensors out of its Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) hardware skunkworks group.

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

Inside The Revolutionary 3D Vision Chip At The Heart Of Google's Project Tango Phone

More: Movidius, The Next Web and MacRumors. Thanks:@_trendspotter

Ben Woods / The Next Web:

4G data: The USA is second-slowest while Australia is fastest — OpenSignal has released a report today looking at the state of LTE coverage and speeds around the world, revealing that, contrary to what you might expect, not all LTE networks perform comparably.

More: ZDNet, OpenSignal, Guardian, TheFonecast.com, Gizmodo Australia, Sydney Morning Herald, AndroidHeadlines.com, Quartz, Android Community, TmoNews, Gizmodo and FierceWireless

Carl Franzen / The Verge:

Steve Jobs will appear on a US postage stamp in 2015 — Many of his creations reduced the need to send physical mail, but late Apple founder Steve Jobs will still get a fitting tribute from the US Postal Service: his likeness will appear on a postage stamp beginning in 2015, according to a document obtained by The Washington Post.

Timothy J. Seppala / Engadget:

Microsoft is hand-picking users to test Xbox One's next software update — BY TIMOTHY J. SEPPALA @TIMSEPPALA FEB 20TH 2014 10:53PM — Ahead of Xbox One's second spring update Microsoft is inviting a handful of gamers to test the patch's mutiplayer features.

More: destructoid, Xbox Live's Major Nelson, The Verge, Windows Phone Central, DualShockers, BGR, Joystiq and TechHive

Om Malik / Gigaom:

Om Malik leaves day-to-day operations at Gigaom, becomes full partner at True Ventures, site raises $8M more — Now that Gigaom is all grown up, it's time for the next chapter — It's a new year (although it's well underway) and I'm excited to talk about the new phase at Gigaom.

More: Re/code, True Ventures, Om Malik, TechCrunch and PE Hub Blog

Tweets: @hnshah, @davemcclure, @erickschonfeld, @jayrosen_nyu, @briansolis, @jason_pontin, @timoreilly, @pkafka, @raanan, @shak, @nitashatiku, @carr2n, @hblodget, @johnolilly, @alexia and @rafat

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