ISB hosts Whatsapp’s Neeraj Arora

When the vice-president of Whatsapp, Neeraj Arora, met the founders of the mobile messenger service for the first time, he thought ‘they were crazy’. It took him a while to process their mission to connect everyone in the world!

But when he was convinced, his job pitch to the founders was “all the things you don’t want to do in a day, give to me”.

On November 4, 2014, a packed Khemka Auditorium greeted Whatsapp’s ‘Business Guy’ on ISB’s Hyderabad campus with an engaging conversation conducted by Reema Gupta, the Associate Director of the Srini Raju Centre for Information Technology and the Networked Economy (SRITNE) at ISB.

Recounting his experience at ISB as a student of the class of 2006, he said that the school was a great place to experience the business ecosystem at home. Arora talked about his M&A negotiation experience at Google and WhatsApp, adding that he could implement what he had picked up at during the one year spent here.

The biggest thing for him was the world class faculty at ISB and the diverse quality of the class - both provided him a global perspective with a mix of emerging markets approach.
The interview covered Neeraj’s entrepreneurial journey, the details of WhatsApp’s revenue model, its acquisition by Facebook and the larger ecosystem required for the success of enterprises like WhatsApp.
 

“We are at a very exciting stage right now in India,” he said, adding that the country has the kind of nascent consumer base that would allow for the launch of an application intended for domestic consumption only. Discussing East Asian markets, Neeraj says, there is always the challenge and “cultural nuance of offering something that suits the culture of that country” balanced with creating a global product.

That India has a huge presence on the internet and social media, means one can build a service only for users in the country, said Arora. “Five years ago, domestic consumption was not much. There is also no reason why the next Facebook can’t come out of India,” he observed.

Team ALC

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