Despite H-1B Shortage, Zuckerberg Not Yet Broke—Pays $19B For Startup Whose Founders Couldn't Get Jobs At FaceBook. WhatsApp With That?
02/20/2014
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WhatsAppMark Zuckerberg lobbied Congress all last year for more immigration to keep himself from being driven into poverty by having to pay crushing salaries to American engineers. Yesterday, though, Facebook somehow scrounged together the scratch to acquire a small startup called WhatsApp for $19 billion. A reader comments:
Steve, Nothing to do with Ukraine. Instead, immigration and Silicon Valley. Yesterday, Facebook announced it had acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion. WhatsApp had two founders, both former staff software engineers for Yahoo. Amazingly, both tried to get jobs at Facebook, and at least one at Twitter, but neither was hired. Zuckerberg wants to re-engineer the American population in the name of a supposed shortage of "qualified" domestic engineers. And yet Facebook's hiring system is so screwed up, it can't even recognize superb, highly experienced, U.S. citizen software engineers when they walk in the door asking for a job. They could've had the founders for maybe $100K/yr each. Instead, they ended up paying $19B. And we're supposed to trust this guy's opinion on whether there are enough good engineers? Unbelievable. Please write about this. Spread the word.

Actually, it does have a connection to Ukraine. While Brian Acton is American-born, Joseph Koum was born a Ukrainian Jew and came here 22 years ago as a teen. 

Perhaps one reason these two guys couldn't get hired by Facebook is because they are so old: Koum is 38 and Acton 42.

 
You might almost think that America isn't quite as bereft of talent as Mr. Zuckerberg's flacks tell Congress it is. If Zuckerberg doesn't get more H-1B visas out of Congress, he might even be forced to hire as programmers Elderly-Americans like Koum and Acton, or even Female-Americans, like corporations did back in the 20th Century.
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