Comment by aylmao
7 hours ago
I think both aquisitions have little to do with the product, and make a lot of sense when you look at the numbers and broader strategy.
WhatsApp had a very clear value at the time of aquisition. It had 450 million users, growth of over 1 million users a day, and was in direct competition with one of Facebook's main products (Messenger) [1].
They did pay $4 billion cash + $15 billion in shares, which is a lot, but overall a not too unreasonable $8 cash + $33 in shares per user to join forces with it's biggest messaging competitor. It not only covered a flank, but catapulted Facebook to own worldwide private messaging overnight.
Manus apparently has "millions of paying users" already [2]. although Manus hasn't been around very long, it's developed by a company that's been around since 2022 [3]. Millions of paying users sounds like a good way for Meta to set foot on the consumer AI product space, which it doesn't seem to be capturing too quickly [4]. It's also based in Singapore and has a lot of Chinese ties, so there might be some strategy there.
[1]: https://about.fb.com/news/2014/02/facebook-to-acquire-whatsa...
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manus_(AI_agent)
[3]: https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/20/meta-ais-app-downloads-and...
If two $1B companies 'merge' and the surviving entity gives the acquired entity $1B in shares, it didnt 'cost' the acquiring entity anything.
Facebook's stock was up 20% later in the year after the acquisition.
Facebook was worth $134.2-139.2B end of 2013 and $217.5-218.5B end of 2014.
I would say it is misleading to say it cost them $15B in shares if the remaining shares FB kept ended up more valuable after the transaction.