Koum, along with co-founder Brian Acton, sold WhatsApp to Facebook in 2014 for around $19 billion.
WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum is leaving the company following arguments with parent company Facebook over data privacy and the messaging app’s business strategy. According to people familiar with the matter, Koum took issue with Facebook’s attempts to use WhatsApp’s personal data and weaken its encryption. The Washington Post was the first to report on Kuom’s plans to leave WhatsApp and step down from Facebook’s board of directors as well.
Koum, along with co-founder Brian Acton, sold WhatsApp to Facebook in 2014 for around $19 billion. Acton left WhatsApp last year in September, while Koum confirmed his departure via a post on Facebook following The Post’s report.
“It’s been almost a decade since Brian and I started WhatsApp, and it’s been an amazing journey with some of the best people. But it is time for me to move on. I’ve been blessed to work with such an incredibly small team and see how a crazy amount of focus can produce an app used by so many people all over the world. I’m leaving at a time when people are using WhatsApp in more ways than I could have imagined. The team is stronger than ever and it’ll continue to do amazing things. I’m taking some time off to do things I enjoy outside of technology, such as collecting rare air-cooled Porsches, working on my cars and playing ultimate frisbee. And I’ll still be cheering WhatsApp on – just from the outside. Thanks to everyone who has made this journey possible,” Koum said in the post.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg replied to Koum saying, “Jan: I will miss working so closely with you. I’m grateful for everything you’ve done to help connect the world, and for everything you’ve taught me, including about encryption and its ability to take power from centralized systems and put it back in people’s hands. Those values will always be at the heart of WhatsApp.”
Facebook has been severely criticised and has faced a massive blow to its reputation after it revealed that Cambridge Analytica was able to gain access to users’ personal information. Koum and Acton over the years have stressed on user privacy and protection on WhatsApp and maintained their position when they announced the sale of the company to Facebook. In 2016 the company also announced end–to-end encryption.
However, Facebook pushed WhatsApp to make changes to its terms and conditions to give the social media platform access to WhatsApp users’ phone numbers and data to help businesses – something WhatsApp executives were not entirely comfortable with. So it doesn’t come as a surprise that Koum would have a fallout with the social media giant following the data scandal that broke out in March.
In March, Acton voiced his concern over the Facebook/ Cambridge Analytica by posting on Twitter that “It is time” along with the hashtag #DeleteFacebook, which gained significant traction amidst the controversy. Facebook revealed that Cambridge Analytica, a political marketing firm that was associated with the Trump campaign during the US Presidential election, had harvested personal information of around 87 million Facebook users.
