Brian Acton

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Brian Acton (right) with Jan Koum

Brian Acton (* 1972 ) is an American programmer and entrepreneur . In addition to Jan Koum , he is the founder of WhatsApp , a messaging application that was acquired by Facebook in February 2014 .

life and career

Acton graduated from Stanford University in 1994 with a degree in computer science . He previously studied at the University of Central Florida and the University of Pennsylvania . In 1992 Acton became a system administrator at Rockwell International and later a product tester at Apple Inc. and Adobe Inc.

Acton joined Yahoo in 1996 as the 44th employee . 1998, his future business partner Jan Koum was as there infrastructure - engineering set. Acton met Koum while working as a safety tester at Ernst & Young . After working at Yahoo for another nine years, they left the company together in September 2007. They took a year off, toured South America and played Ultimate Frisbee . Both headed for a career on Facebook , but were not hired there. In January 2009, Koum bought an Apple iPhone and discovered that a dozen new apps were already available in the seven-month-old App Store . He then visited his friend Alex Fishman to talk to him about the release of his own app. Koum decided on the spur of the moment to use the name WhatsApp because it sounded like “what's up” (Eng .: how are you? ). A week later, on February 24th 2009, the 33rd birthday of Koum, he founded in Santa Clara , California , the company WhatsApp .

In February 2018, Acton invested $ 50 million in the newly formed Signal Foundation , a non-profit organization developing the Signal messaging app , and joined the Foundation as its chairman.

On March 20, 2018 Acton tweeted: “It is time. #deletefacebook "

capital

In 2014, Acton and Koum agreed to sell WhatsApp to Facebook for $ 19 billion. Forbes Magazine estimates Acton's net worth, based on his stake in the company, at approximately $ 3.8 billion.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Brian Acton . In: Crunchbase . Retrieved February 21, 2014.
  2. ↑ Parmy Olson: Exclusive: The Rags-To-Riches Tale Of How Jan Koum Built WhatsApp Into Facebook's New $ 19 Billion Baby . Forbes Magazine . February 19, 2014. Retrieved February 20, 2014.
  3. ↑ Andy Greenberg: WhatsApp Co-Founder Brian Acton Injects $ 50 Million in Newly Formed Signal Foundation. In: wired.com. Wired , February 21, 2018, accessed February 22, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Brian Acton on Twitter: "It is time. #Deletefacebook" In: twitter.com, March 20, 2018, accessed on March 29, 2018.
  5. ↑ Ryan Mac: WhatsApp Founders Become Billionaires Through $ 19 Billion Facebook Deal . In: Forbes , February 19, 2014. Retrieved February 21, 2014. 
personal data
SURNAME Acton, Brian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American programmer and entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH 1972
PLACE OF BIRTH United States