Mark Zuckerberg’s icy relationship with WhatsApp’s Brian Acton

Facebook
CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Reuters/Leah
Millis

• Brian Acton, a cofounder of WhatsApp, has broken his
  silence about leaving Facebook three years after his company
  was acquired for $16 billion.
• 
  In an explosive interview with Forbes, Acton outlined
  tensions with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl
  Sandberg about introducing ads into WhatsApp.
• Acton recalled one meeting where Zuckerberg apparently
  told him: “This is probably the last time you’ll ever talk to
  me.”
• He said he never became close to the Facebook chief,
  despite leading the company’s most expensive
  acquisition.

WhatsApp cofounder Brian Acton has broken his silence about why
he left Facebook last year
in an explosive interview with Forbes — and it is a gnarly
Silicon Valley fight for the ages.

Acton left Facebook in 2017, three years after the company
acquired WhatsApp for $16 billion. His cofounder, Jan Koum, left
in 2018 and is, according to Forbes, uncontactable while sailing
in the Mediterranean.

Acton provided the first official confirmation that things were
extremely icy between the WhatsApp team Facebook CEO Mark
Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg.

He recounted one meeting where he was dragged before Zuckerberg
and Facebook’s lawyers about how Facebook could make money from
WhatsApp. The messaging app’s founders have been famously
reluctant to introduce ads into the service, but that’s also
Facebook’s primary way of making money.

WhatsApp cofounder Brian Acton.
REUTERS/Mike Blake

Specifically, they wrangled over whether Facebook’s insistence on
introducing ads into WhatsApp meant that Acton could exit and
take his full allocation of stock.

The $16 billion acquisition price comprised $4 billion in cash,
and $12 billion in Facebook shares. If Facebook ever introduced
ads against the founders’ will, they could take all their
allocated stock before the agreed four-year time period.

Facebook’s lawyers didn’t think exploring monetisation broke the
agreement. According to Acton, Zuckerberg apparently told him:
“This is probably the last time you’ll ever talk to me.”

Despite three years at Facebook and heading up its most expensive
acquisition to date, Acton said he never became close to
Zuckerberg. “I couldn’t tell you much about the guy.”

This somewhat stacks up with reports about Zuckerberg’s
personality — the kinder suggest he’s only close to a small group
of friends, while the less kind portray him as emotionless.

Acton’s explosive account comes just as
another pair of founders quit Facebook: Instagram founder
Kevin Systrom and Mike Brier, again with reported tensions with
Zuckerberg.