WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum Announces Exit 'After Privacy Disagreement With Facebook Bosses'

Jan Koum

WhatsApp’s billionaire chief executive and co-founder Jan Koum has announced he will quit his role at the Facebook-owned company.

Koum’s plan to exit the firm comes after he clashed with the app’s parent company Facebook Inc over its plans to use personal data and weaken encryption, according to reports.

"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," Mr Koum said in a post on his Facebook page referring to co-founder Brian Acton.

"But it is time for me to move on." He did not give a date for his departure.

According to the Washington Post, Mr Koum’s decided to step down because of the messaging service’s strategy and Facebook’s attempts to use its personal data and weaken encryption.

Responding to Mr Koum's post, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote: "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."

Mr Acton left the messaging service company in September to start a foundation, after spending eight years with WhatsApp.

Stanford alumnus Acton and Ukrainian immigrant Koum co-founded WhatsApp in 2009. Facebook bought WhatsApp in 2014 for $19 billion in cash and stock.

WhatsApp, a pun on the phrase "What's up?," grew in popularity in part because its messages are stored on users' smartphones and not on the company's servers, making the service more private and difficult to hack.

Concerns about Facebook's handling of personal information have grown since the social network's admission in March that the data of millions of users was wrongly harvested by political consultancy Cambridge Analytica.

Facebook has taken steps in recent months to generate revenue from WhatsApp, which unlike Facebook's flagship social network does not have advertising.

Koum and Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg ruled out advertising on WhatsApp.


(EveningStandard)




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