‘This is a blow to everyone. Nobody who works at WeTransfer or has ever worked, likes this. Except for a handful of people in suit then. Same shit, Different Day.“
Was signed: WeTransfer founder Ronald Hans, better known under his nickname Nalden.
Hans founded the digital shipping service in 2009, together with Bas Beerens and Rinke Visser. The three founders now no longer have a role at WeTransfer, which was purchased in August last year from the Italian tech investor Bending Spoons. But Hans would like-in an interview by e-mail-to say something about what is going on at ‘his’ company.
This week a lot of fuss about new user conditions from WeTransfer, which will start next month. WeTransfer receives a continuous, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to commercially exploit the photos, videos and documents that users send. Initially, the company would like to do this to train AI systems, although WeTransfer adjusted a passage over it after all the fuss.
Users and privacy experts responded furiously to the new conditions and called on social media a boycott of the service. Through the originally Dutch WeTransfer, 80 million users send around two billion files every month. This makes it one of the largest free shipping services in the world.
For Hans, Beerens and Visser, WeTransfer was more than a functional site when founding. The service distinguished itself by its artistic design, where artists were given a lot of room to show their work. The site gave 30 percent of its yields to artists and charities. Money was earned with advertisements and subscriptions for shipping extra large files.
WETRANSFER has been profitable since 2013, although the advertising income and the number of paying users were left with expectations. An IPO was canceled in 2022. Visser and Hans were already away from WeTransfer, Beerens also left the company then.
After Bending Spoons, which purchases companies with ‘unused growth potential’, had taken over WeTransfer in 2024, CEO Luca Ferrari immediately put things in order. In his first e-mail to the staff, he announced that he wanted to dismiss three quarters of the 350 employees. Since then, the Italian owner has been looking for new ways to earn more money with WeTransfer.
That now seems to want to do bending spoons with the files that users send via WeTransfer, although it is unclear how exactly. Anyway, with data from users making money was something that the founders of WeTransfer were always completely opposed to.
What do you think of what is happening at WeTransfer?
Hans: “I think it is a shame that everything WeTransfer once stood for is thrown so much. Unfortunately, it is the nature of the system in which the company is located. The private equity club [Bending Spoons] That WeTransfer has bought is en route to an IPO and an AI strategy is then necessary to boost the appreciation. It’s a Numbers Game. It’s not about creativity or people. That is at odds with what I did when I, somewhat naive, started with WeTransfer. ”
How do you look at what has happened to the company in recent years?
“A while ago I gave birth to my shares, even before Bending Spoons bought it. As a result, I was able to get used to the idea that this is how the game is played.”Business Never Personal‘, as [het Amerikaanse hiphopduo] EPMD once said. It is still a shame that all those years in which we have built such a beautiful brand are canceled in a short time. ”
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You posted this week a tweet. ‘Trust Takes years to build, seconds to break and forever to repair’. Can you explain this?
“There was a lot of goodwill in WeTransfer because we have realized beautiful projects together with users for years. As a result, it was also enormously respected, apart from how much the service was used. WeTransfer was one of those technology companies that did things differently, that came up for Privacy, and creativity had a high priority now.”
Is it difficult to let go? Or is this just like that?
“I find it no longer difficult. In the past, perhaps more than now. As an entrepreneur you are always associated with the companies that you have founded, although you are no longer involved. That is part of it.”
Tech entrepreneurs are always busy with the next plan and don’t look back. How is that for you? Does this make you cynical, angry, sad? Or do you shrug the shoulders?
“As an entrepreneur you have to look ahead. That is the nature of the game, right? You innovate or die. But in my opinion that is still possible to throw your users, or customers, for the bus. In principle, Bending Spoons has been doing something that Meta, OpenAi and Google have been doing it for years. I am trying to get things differently and try to get things differently.”
Nowadays you are an investor. Again working on a new company?
“I have recently retired again. I have set up a start-up studio to make user-friendly software. For example, I made a newsletter tool, Rumicat. My son has designed the logo. And there is an alternative to WeTransfer in the making, because I already saw the buzz hanging. I just didn’t know that it would be so fast.”
Bending Spoons and WeTransfer did not respond to a request from NRC For a response.