The most well-known accomplishment of American computer programmer and Internet entrepreneur Brian Acton is co-founding WhatsApp. Acton started his work as a system administrator for Rockwell International after graduating from Stanford University with a degree in computer technology. Later, he worked for organizations including Yahoo Inc., Apple, and Adobe Systems. He made investments during the dot-com bubble but lost millions after the crisis in 2000. Together with his coworker Jan Koum, he departed Yahoo and later worked on building WhatsApp, a mobile messaging platform. The pair, who had previously applied for positions at Facebook but had been turned down, sold WhatsApp to Facebook in February 2014 for US$19 billion, making it Facebook’s most expensive acquisition to date. Acton left WhatsApp in September 2017 to launch the ‘Signal Foundation,’ a non-profit organization, with American computer security expert Moxie Marlinspike. The organization was established in February 2018.
Early Childhood & Life
He was born on February 17, 1972, into a working-class household in the US state of Michigan. His mother, who served as his founder’s inspiration, owned a freight shipping company.
He was raised in Central Florida and went to Lake Howell High School, a four-year comprehensive high school. After receiving a full scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania to study engineering, he enrolled there but departed a year later to enroll at Stanford University. He graduated from Stanford University in 1994 with a degree in computer science.
Career of Brian Acton
He began his professional life in 1992 when he joined the now-defunct American industrial firm Rockwell International as a systems administrator. Later, he worked as a product tester for both the American multinational software firm Adobe Systems and the American multinational technology company Apple Inc.
He started working for Yahoo Inc. in 1996, being the 44th person to do so. He spent the following eleven years working for Yahoo, where Jan Koum had also started in 1998 as an infrastructure engineer. Acton continued to make investments during the dotcom boom. During the dot-com bubble in 2000, he was forced to take millions of dollars in losses.
He was given the Yahoo Super Star honor in 2007. In September of that year, he and Koum left Yahoo. After that, they took a year off and played ultimate frisbee while traveling throughout South America. After submitting job applications to Facebook, the two were also turned down.
Koum realized the potential of the seven-month-old App Store to generate a completely new apps sector in the near future when he bought an iPhone in January 2009. He started meeting Acton and his friend Alex Fishman in West San Jose to talk about creating an app. Koum gave the application the name “WhatsApp” to make it sound more like “what’s up.”
The following day, February 24, 2009, Koum incorporated WhatsApp Inc. in California. Koum considered leaving the company and looking for a new position at one time when he grew tired of the app versions crashing or becoming stuck. Acton encouraged him at the time to give it “a few more months” of time.
In August 2009, WhatsApp 2.0, which included a messaging feature, was published. A dramatic increase in active users was seen, reaching a total of 250,000. In October of that year, Acton, who was at the time unemployed and in charge of another firm, persuaded five of his former Yahoo! coworkers to invest $250,000 in early capital. On November 1 of the same year, he formally joined the company and received co-founder status along with a stake.
New features were added to the app over time, and by early 2011, it was among the top 20 apps in Apple’s U.S. App Store. The American venture capital firm Sequoia Capital invested roughly $8 million for more than 15% of the business in April of that year.
On February 19, 2014, Facebook announced that it would purchase WhatsApp for US$19 billion. This deal represents the largest venture-backed company acquisition to date as well as the largest one undertaken by the American online social media and social networking service company to date.
In addition to receiving $4 billion in cash and an extra $3 billion in restricted stock units, Koum and Acton received $12 billion in Facebook shares. Acton owned more than one-fifth of the corporation, according to a Forbes assessment, which increased his net worth to roughly $3.8 billion.
Acton quit Facebook, the parent company of WhatsApp, in September 2017 to start a new charity dubbed the “Signal Foundation.” Acton and Moxie Marlinspike announced the creation of the 501(c)(3) non-profit company “Signal Foundation” on February 21 of the following year, which shares its name with Marlinspike’s Signal communications software.
Acton provided an initial $50 million to launch the “Signal Foundation,” whose goal is to create open-source privacy technology that protects free expression and offers safe international communication. Acton serves as the foundation’s Executive Chairman, and Marlinspike serves as its CEO.
He was ranked #76 in the Forbes 400 list for 2017, #38 in the Richest In Tech list for 2017, and #251 in the Billionaires list for 2018. On March 20, 2018, Acton tweeted that he was publicly supporting the #DeleteFacebook movement, according to a Forbes article.
Individual Life of Brian Acton
Tegan Acton, his wife, worked at Yahoo and the Sundance Institute in addition to serving as Stanford’s director of communications and strategic initiatives. In 2014, the pair established ‘Sunlight Giving,’ a family charity. It is committed to providing essential assistance to low-income families with children between the ages of 0 and 5. Acton functions as the foundation’s secretary and treasurer, and Tegan serves as its president.
Acton contributed shares of Facebook valued at about $290 million to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, according to sources, when Facebook purchased WhatsApp.
He had mentioned in one of his tweets that in 2009, both Facebook and Twitter had rejected him.
Estimated Net Worth of Brian Acton
The estimated net worth of Brian Acton is around $1 million.