What happens to the founders after big tech acquisitions?

Whats App was founded in 2009 by Brian Acton and Jan Koum — both former employees of Yahoo!

In September 2007, they took about a year off for traveling around South America. After buying an iPhone, they saw opportunity in the growing App Store.

In February 2009, they incorporated Whats App Inc. in California.

After many bugs and failures, the app suddenly started to gain momentum. With growth, however, the costs quickly started to add up, so they occasionally switched the app from "free" to $0.99 so they wouldn't grow too fast.

A few years later, in February 2013, Whats App's user base had grown to about 200 million active users and 50 employees. Sequoia would invest $50 million, valuing Whats App at $1.5 billion.

In February 2014, just a few months after Sequoia’s round, Facebook, Inc. announced it was acquiring Whats App for US$19 billion — its largest acquisition to date.

What happened to the founders after Whats App's acquisition?

Both founders were hired by Mark Zuckerberg to continue growing the platform.

Four years later, they decided to leave Facebook with polarized opinions on how to monetize the app. “At the end of the day, I sold my company,” Acton told Forbes. “I sold my users’ privacy to a larger benefit. I made a choice and a compromise. I live with that every day.”

As usual, privacy controversies revolve around Facebook