WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton is leaving company to start his own non-profit foundation

WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton has announced that he will be leaving the company in order to start his own non-profit foundation. [caption id=“attachment_4038757” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Brian Acton, WhatsApp co-founder. Image: Reuters[/caption] Acton founded WhatsApp along with Jan Koum in 2009. It was eventually acquired by Facebook for a huge sum of $19 billion in 2014. Incidentally, Acton had also interviewed at Facebook in 2009, but was not hired. In a Facebook post, Acton announced his plans to move on from WhatsApp. Here’s the complete text from Acton’s post.

After 8 years at WhatsApp, I have decided to move on and start a new chapter in my life. I am very fortunate at my age to have the flexibility to take new risks and focus on what I’m passionate about. I’ve decided to start a non-profit focused at the intersection of nonprofit, technology and communications. It’s something I’ve thought about for a while, and now it’s time to just focus and execute. I’ll have more to share in the coming months. This decision is, of course, a tough one. I’m proud of what our team has accomplished in only a few years, and it’s humbling to see that so many people rely on WhatsApp every day.

After the acquisition by Facebook, Acton was leading the engineering efforts at WhatsApp. According to sources who’ve spoken to Recode, Acton was also instrumental in pushing for encryption on WhatsApp. While there is no clarity as to what Acton will be focussed on as the ideas he has mentioned are quite broad. According to Forbes, Acton’s personal net worth is around $6.5 billion. Acton’s position will not be replaced yet, at WhatsApp, according to Recode.  WhatsApp recently announced its foray into adding business accounts. According to the  FAQ page on WhatsApp, “If you see a green badge next to a contact’s name, it means that WhatsApp has confirmed the phone number of this contact belongs to a business account.”