In the wake of the WhatsApp acquisition, there's been a ton of posts and articles flying around about all aspects of it, from how Facebook arrived at their valuation to how it challenged a lot of the conventional wisdom about what it takes to make a successful company in Silicon Valley.
There's a lot of jealousy. There's also a lot of talk about this lust many entreprenuers have for liquidity events, and there is no shortage of analysis on how or where the next one of these may come from.
All I have to say about it is this; if you're driven primarily by a big payday and lust for a liquidity event, you're probably in the wrong game. With any creative endeavor, people who are or who become the most successful are driven by a passion for what they do or the problem they are solving. For these people, the paycheck is often a secondary consideration.
I'm sure there's more than a modicum of satisfaction for the WhatsApp founders in their liquidity event. However, I think you'd probably find that they were driven more by the satisfaction of solving a problem for hundreds of millions of people than they were about the prospect of what has arguably become the most epic acquisition in the history of acquisitions.
Most successful people are driven by a passion for something. They win not because they want to pursue something for the rewards and accolades, they win because they need to pursue it; they are driven by a force they can't control or understand. Those driven by want of success may well find it, but it's very often short lived and not long remembered. The Beatles didn't write hit songs because they were motivated by the payday. Paying the bills I'm sure was important, but they wrote hit songs because it's what they loved to do. The Monkees on the other hand were nothing but a contrived commercial response to The Beatles. The Monkees were successful, no doubt, but I'm willing to bet that most people of my vintage or older, can rattle off more songs and facts about The Beatles than they can about The Monkees. Once the hype faded, so did The Monkees. The Beatles on the other hand, have been an influential fixture of pop culture for decades. The Monkees, decidedly less so. The Beatles changed the world, The Monkees were an attempt to cash in on the fact that The Beatles had changed the world.
If I were ever asked, my advice to those entering this game would be simple; solve a real problem and stay true to who you are and what you do. Don't let money be your primary motivation. If you believe that what you're doing is important, and you are passionate about it, a lasting and satisfying success is very likely to find you. There are never any guarantees of success of course, but passion very often disregards risk or accepts overcoming it as a challenge.