Founder WhatsApp is leaving Facebook because of the current direction
Jan Koum is a name you may not know, but the billionaire is the CEO and co-founder of WhatsApp. He was admitted to the Board of Commissioners of Facebook in the take over of the company in 2014, but according to the Washington Post, he certainly intends to leave there as well. He would even want to give up his position at WhatsApp.
Apparently, Koum has quite a few differences of opinion when it comes to the future of ‘his’ messaging service. Facebook would like to use the personal data of the WhatsApp users and it seems that it is also busy to make the encryption of WhatsApp less strong. All things that Koum cannot live with, the sources say. When he leaves exactly is not clear, but Koum is already making the round of Facebook’s leadership to explain his decision.
Critical to the old boss
Koum and co-founder Brian Acton placed the protection and independence of the users of WhatsApp in high esteem. After the promises made by the two users during the takeover, you could expect that there are also guarantees given by Facebook about what should or should not be done. Perhaps there was a period of a number of years, as is often the case, and it is now over. Acton went to November last year and is, like many other ex-executives of the social media company very critical to Facebook.
Well, this is all a bit of ‘inside baseball’ as they call it in the States, but the fact is that Koum’s problems with Facebook will also have an impact on our experience with WhatsApp in the future.