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WhatsApp co-founder Acton flags tensions with Zuckerberg - Forbes

September 26, 2018 at 09:09 am EDT

(Reuters) - WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton had disagreements with Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg over monetization of the messaging service before he left the company, according to an interview with Acton published by Forbes on Wednesday.

Facebook-owned Instagram's co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger were the latest senior executives to leave the social media company on Monday, with many media reports saying friction with Zuckerberg had caused the departures.

Acton spent eight years with WhatsApp before leaving the company in September last year. His co-founder, Jan Koum, left the company in April in a loss of one of the strongest advocates for privacy inside Facebook.

The Forbes interview https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2018/09/26/exclusive-whatsapp-cofounder-brian-acton-gives-the-inside-story-on-deletefacebook-and-why-he-left-850-million-behind with Acton said that Facebook wanted to sell businesses tools to chat with WhatsApp users followed by analytics tools.

However, Acton said WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption stood in the way, and Facebook managers questioned and probed ways to offer businesses analytical insights on WhatsApp users while keeping the encrypted environment.

The report said Acton had proposed monetizing WhatsApp through a metered-user model, charging users after a certain large number of free messages were used up. His plans were shot down by Sandberg, saying "It won't scale".

Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.

(Reporting by Munsif Vengattil in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)

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Mark Zuckerberg

Youngest billionaire in the world with 4 billion dollars in 2010, Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of the social networking site Facebook, was the 52nd richest men in the world in 2011 (according to Forbes). His personal fortune was estimated at $ 13.5 billion in 2011.

Graduated in 2003 from Phillips Exeter Academy, Mark Zuckerberg joined Harvard. Keen on informatics and gifted in programming, he created his first network aimed to rate the sex appeal of his friends by hacking photos on the servers of Harvard. The user has two portraits of girls and he has to vote for the sexiest girl. Success is dazzling: 22 000 connections in two hours.

In 2004, Mark Zuckerberg officially launched Facebook, a social network designed primarily for students of Harvard and other universities, the success was immediate. Little by little, Mark adds functionalities which allow to find people, communicate with them and to see friend in common.

In 2006, Facebook is opened to the public. The popularity of the social network growas each day and overtakes My Space.

Mark Zuckerberg used advertising based on behaviors of network users. Advertisers could easily target customers interested in their offers. But Mark Zuckerberg has to update constantly his securities policy. In 2010, 500 million people had a Facebook account.

In 2007, Microsoft spent $ 280 million to hold 1.7 % of the fastest growing social network. The Chinese billionaire spent $ 120 million to hold approximately 0.8% of Facebook.

In 2010, Facebook counted 500 million members and had a turnover of $ 500 million in 2009. It is the 5th most visited website in the world. In 2011, Mark Zuckerberg leaded the way of the most powerful figure according to Medias ahead Rupert Murdoch, Larry Page and Steve Jobs (The Guardian).

Mark Zuckerberg has been in trial twice, the first one against the Winklevoss twins who accused him of intellectual property offense, the second one against Eduardo Saverin, co-founder of The Facebook ( the first version of Facebook), who was his roommate at Harvard but also his best friend.

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