This man, who was once rejected by Twitter and Facebook when he tried to apply for a job, created one of the most popular applications we know and use every day. Also he managed to sell it to the one and only Mark Zuckerberg for 19 million dollars. Plus he still holds 20% of the company.
It was not an easy road for Brian, on the way to success he lost millions of dollars and had to try and find his way up to the top afterwards. He states that life is but an adventure and if you do not achieve success in whatever it is that you do then what is really the point?
Brian Acton lived in Michigan during his early years, and before he became the successful man he is today, he studied at the University of Pennsylvania and also tried at the University of Central Florida. He graduated from Stanford University. He worked with Yahoo and Apple. At Yahoo he met Jan Koum who later became his business partner.
Jan and Brian worked for several years at Yahoo, after an inversion went badly; both of them left Yahoo and traveled across South America for around a year. In 2009 the beginning of Whatsapp started. Jan got in touch with Alex Fishman (a friend of his). The name Whatsapp came to Jan as the result of a very popular English phrase we use on a daily basis: What’s up?
Five years later Brian and company decided to sell the app to Facebook for 19 million dollars. Despite the rejection from Facebook, Brian and Mark remain friendly to each other. Today, Brian has an estimated fortune that is about 3.4 billion dollars and is amongst the richest people at the USA. Whatsapp is one of the most popular apps these days, with over 450 million users worldwide.