Co-founder of WhatsApp, WhatsApp
The INSANE Story of WhatsApp's Founder - Brian Acton
The story of how Brian Acton founded both WhatsApp and Signal. With 2 billion users worldwide, WhatsApp is the preferred ...
About Brian Acton
Brian Acton, co-founder of WhatsApp and the Signal Foundation, has spoken publicly about his departure from Facebook and his focus on privacy-focused communication. Acton left Facebook in 2017 after disagreements over monetization and data use, saying he told executives, "It's better if I get out of your way, and I did." He estimated that the decision cost him $850 million in unvested stock. In March 2018, he tweeted "It is time. #DeleteFacebook" amid the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Acton has since described himself as "the David going against the Goliath that I created" and said he stands on his principles regarding advertising and user tracking. Acton has promoted Signal as a nonprofit alternative to WhatsApp, emphasizing that the app collects minimal user data. He stated, "If you start from a position of 'we have no information,' you're automatically protecting people's privacy." He noted that Signal is financed through grants and donations, not data collection or advertising. Acton has said he does not aim to directly compete with WhatsApp in areas like business messaging, and that competition between messaging apps benefits users by driving innovation. He has also described Signal's growth as exceeding his expectations, including in India, and said the foundation's goal is to become self-sustaining over time.
Transcript (8 segments)
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Narrator0:01
We're at a billion users and of course we continue to track that, of course we continue to grow at quite a healthy pace. You know, what we're working towards is the next big milestone. You know, announcing intermediate numbers along the way is not really that important to us. You know, we want to get to two billion users. That's going to take some time and we're actively working towards that.
With 2 billion users worldwide, WhatsApp is the preferred texting platform with billions of messages sent across its servers every single day. But is everyone comfortable using WhatsApp when it comes to privacy and security concerns? Such skeptics prefer using Signal, which is an alternative messaging app to WhatsApp. Signal is widely used by journalists and human rights activists for encrypted and secure private messaging. Signal is seen as a big rival to WhatsApp. And surprisingly, both apps were founded by the same person: Brian Acton. So how did Brian Acton end up founding two messaging apps that rival each other?
Born in Michigan in the early 70s, Brian Acton graduated from Stanford University studying computer science before creating WhatsApp with his former colleague and friend Jan Koum. He has worked as a product tester for Apple and Adobe. He also worked at Yahoo where he was with his friend Jan Koum. In 2007, both Brian and Jan left Yahoo and took a year traveling around South America. Both later applied to work at Facebook but were rejected. Brian was also rejected by Twitter. In 2009, Brian and Jan decided to create WhatsApp. WhatsApp rapidly grew in popularity and got the attention of social media giant Facebook.
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Brian Acton3:05
Well, I think if you look at what we've done in the last seven years, we've really tackled the problem of consumer messaging: two people wanting to communicate with each other, husband and wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, co-workers, friends, whatever it might be. And when you think back to like 2009 and 2008, the messaging systems that were around were kind of clunky. You had to use SMS and it was limited in many ways. It was expensive. You only had 160 characters. You had systems like ICQ or Skype where you had to exchange usernames or pins to connect with somebody. And what we've done is we built the system on top of your address book where you don't have to jump through these hoops to communicate with people who already are in the address book. And we built it in such a way that it gives you more functionality: you know if your message has been delivered, if it's read, you can have group chats, you can send media, you can share a video.
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Narrator4:01
In 2014, Koum and Acton sold WhatsApp to Facebook for a whopping 19 billion dollars in cash and stocks. In the purchase agreement, Brian was to continue managing WhatsApp. But just 18 months later, the promise not to share data evaporated. Facebook had initially promised Brian that it would not interfere in the data collected from users through WhatsApp. But this agreement was broken. Facebook pushed WhatsApp to change its terms of service to give the social media network access to phone numbers of WhatsApp users, along with analytics such as what devices and operating systems people were using. In September 2017, Brian Acton left WhatsApp. Acton left over a dispute with Facebook regarding monetization of WhatsApp and also access to users' data. Acton voluntarily left 850 million in invested options on the table. He also said that he was caused by Facebook executives to mislead European regulators regarding Facebook's intention to merge Facebook and WhatsApp user data.
In 2018, Brian founded the Signal Foundation with an initial investment of 50 million dollars. At Signal, Brian puts emphasis on the privacy of its users and their data. The texting platform Signal is open source, which means it's completely transparent. Anyone in the world can look at the way the texting app functions and make sure that there is no misuse of user data in the background. Signal has been topping the app store charts globally. Now, how is Signal scaling up to match the growth and at what speed?
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Brian Acton6:40
We're basically all hands on deck. We've been losing a fair amount of sleep, but we've been scaling up our servers to make sure that we have enough capacity for all the users that want to use our app. And so far we've been able to manage the load. Obviously I have a lot of experience doing this. I've been in the industry quite a while. And we're excited because the Indian country and people have really signed up quite considerably. And it's been exciting to see so many people and get so much feedback and to already get tons of feature requests and things like that. I know that people are really excited to try out Signal and explore it, and it's a great opportunity for us.
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Narrator7:32
The company is financed through a series of grants and donations that are offered either by its users or privacy advocates across the globe, eliminating the need for any kind of data collection or tracking for targeting ads. Brian enjoys being a philanthropist. Since 2014, Brian Acton and his wife Tegan Acton started to build a philanthropic network through the foundation Wide Giving with three sister foundations: Sunlight Giving, Acton Family Giving, and Solidarity Giving. The couple started Sunlight Giving in 2014, a family foundation dedicated to supporting the basic services of low-income families with young children ages 0 to 5. It also provides support for safe spaces and organizations that ensure food security, housing stability, and healthcare access. In 2019, Brian Acton and his wife were considered between them the biggest givers of the year by Forbes magazine after giving more than one billion dollars to charitable causes.