Co-founder of messaging service WhatsApp, Brian Acton, has announced he will leave the company to start a foundation. Acton led the engineering team at the company, and his fellow co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Jan Koum will continue at WhatsApp.
“After 8 years at WhatsApp, I have decided to move on and start a new chapter in my life,” Acton said in a Facebook post early on Wednesday. “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.”
Acton and Koum had founded the messaging service in 2009. In July 2017, the company had said it had 130 crore active monthly users. As many as 5,500 crore messages were sent using the app every day, as well as 450 crore photos and 100 crore videos. Facebook had bought the messaging app for $22 billion in 2014.
Acton’s departure comes at a time when Facebook is looking at charging companies to use some of WhatsApp’s upcoming features.
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