Brian Acton
Palo Alto, California
Bachelor of Arts/Science, Stanford University
United States
WhatsApp Inc.
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WhatsApp, Self Made
$3,600,000,000
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4
#597 Billionaires 2019
#215 Forbes 400 2018
Computer engineer Brian Acton cofounded messaging app WhatsApp with Jan Koum in 2007; the two had met while working at Yahoo. The pair sold WhatsApp to Facebook for $22 billion in cash and stock in 2014. Acton received about $3 billion for his stake in WhatsApp. The mobile messaging app has over 1 billion users in 180 countries.In Feb. 2018, he committed $50 million to Signal Foundation - the nonprofit behind the signal mobile app focused on preserving private communication.He donated Facebook shares worth nearly $290 million to a fund in the Silicon Valley Community Foundation after its acquisition of WhatsApp.
Acton applied for a job at Facebook and was rejected five years before the social media giant bought WhatsApp.He tweeted "#deletefacebook" in March 2018 in the wake of revelations that Facebook had enabled Cambridge Analytica to improperly handle data from users.
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