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0 pointsdminik2mo ago0 comments

Yes. But unlike cursor, Whatsapp had the following advantages:

1. It's cheap to run.

2. It has clear advantages over existing technology (SMS).

3. My mom uses it. She's never going to use cursor. Whatsapp had a huge userbase in Europe. Basically everyone I know uses it.

And it was "only" ~$20 billion. Inflation can't be this high.

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5 comments · 2 top-level

robertlagrant2mo ago· 3 in thread

> And it was "only" ~$20 billion. Inflation can't be this high.

While I'm not sure about this buy, Cursor does at least have revenue. WhatsApp was basically running on VC/private money (they had an extremely nominal fee, but I never had to pay it), and was sold to buy its userbase into the Facebook fold. I don't think you can compare that to a business that at least has some decent revenue.

dminikOP2mo ago

If Whatsapp is burning through say ~$1B yearly with zero revenue and Cursor is burning through say ~$2B with a ~$1B revenue, they're both still in the hole.

I wish people would stop talking about just revenue. It's mostly meaningless without knowing their expenses.

abustamam2mo ago

I think revenue is common to talk about because profit is also meaningless when a company spends every penny it earns to grow (new engineers, marketing, etc). Iirc Amazon made zero profit for quite some time.

Also revenue is a signal for product market fit. Is it a great one? Dunno. But for example I'd be hard pressed to sell $1billion of anything, even if I had something everyone wanted.

But I think your point about burn rate is important. How long can they have this attrition on cash before they collapse?

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oheyadam2mo ago

WhatsApp was actually profitable pre-acquisition and they never needed the VC money. It was still in the bank + more when they got acquired

brightball2mo ago

I feel like people are underestimating the market share of Cursor.

The value in acquisitions for investors typically comes from how much money is locked into multi-year deals. A lot of tech folks in leadership positions that I talk to are very aware that the best option in this space changes every 2 months. Right now it's Claude. Next month it might be Codex. A couple months after that it could be Gemini/Qwen/Composor/Kimi/xAI.

Locking in with Cursor where quick swapping your team between the changing options is the point is a better choice than locking in even a 1 year deal with any single option where you're still going to be paying for token cost on top of it.

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