He's not trying to keep the money, the headline says it right there: "founder wants to buy his app back."

Of course you can buy back something that you sold. They just don't have to sell it to you.

"Backsies" is reversing the original deal, not just half. This founder is asking for backsies by definition.

Ok but you can totally do what he's doing. There's some price that would get Microsoft to sell Wunderlist, and if he's willing to pay that much then he will get Wunderlist back. If that's "backsies" then you can absolutely backsies as much as you want.

Yeah, that’s why he wants to buy it back. They will get their money back.

Microsoft would get a fraction of their money back.

The former owners wouldn't pay more than 10-25% of what they previously sold Wunderlist for, at this point.

That's why this feels like a publicity stunt to shame Microsoft.

If you've made millions of dollars from selling something - I don't feel like you have the right to shame the buyer especially if you're only offering 25% back. He should have kept the offer he made private.

Microsoft paid 150 million for it, of which the VCs I'm sure got at least half.

I can't imagine him offering anything close to that. I notice he hasn't said how much he will offer.

Well tell that to Skype :)