WhatsApp was already a star. It had millions of users and was the "go to" app for communication in many countries. We forget that here in NA. Oculus, as cool as it is, still doesn't have a huge customer/user database.
WhatsApp was something essentially fungible with things we already had and things which can be built relatively easily. Decent-quality consumer VR was not that.
I don't see how you're really addressing the point, the idea is that Occulus Rift's star risen would be way way more valuable then WhatsApp ever could hope to be. We all know they still have a journey in front of them, but the idea is they could have kept going on their own, and you know, had a star risen moment vs getting acquired before a general consumer product was released.
But, you get a couple hundred million users that make next to no revenue and will be incredibly difficult to monetize and your star has risen. Pretty hard to compete with that rock solid proven model I guess.
I tend to disagree. Facebook is worth billions and they created a business of sharing photos and status updates. WhatsApp allows you to do this as well, but on the mobile platform that has escaped Facebook's grasp. WhatsApp is a hugely successful piece of software that fits within Facebooks portfolio very nicely. It also doesn't come with huge overhead, something like 20 engineers keep WhatsApp running. You don't have to speculate that WhatsApp (and it's 1/2 billion user base) is worth money.
On the other hand you have a hardware startup with no customers and an unproven product. Sure they have sold a bunch of dev kit's, but those are far from being ready for the consumer market.
In addition to not having a customers, they have Sony building a similar product and remember that Sony already has hardware in millions of homes and therefore roll out would be much easier. Occulus might build a great product, but competition is going to be much harder given Sony's pursuit. I would argue that Occulus has proven to be an innovative and smart company, but in no means have they proven to be a successful business and therefore their "star has not risen" just yet. Speculation on future value is much harder with Occulus and has too many "ifs" and therefore, currently, Occulus is not worth anything close to the $19B paid for WhatsApp.
WhatsApp was already a star. It had millions of users and was the "go to" app for communication in many countries. We forget that here in NA. Oculus, as cool as it is, still doesn't have a huge customer/user database.