Founder WhatsApp told why he created the messenger

Co-founder and CEO of WhatsApp instant messenger Jan Kum, speaking at the Computer History Museum in California, told how the idea of ​​the company he founded in 2009, together with Brian Acton, came to him. According to him, he wanted to stop skipping calls on a new mobile phone, CNBC reports .

It all started when Kum bought an iPhone. When he went to the gym, he missed calls. This greatly irritated him. Therefore, together with Acton, he developed an application that allowed people to find out if their friends are available from the contact list (using the "status" function in the application).

"We were not going to build a company. We just wanted to create a product that people used, "Kum recalls. However, the application did not take off immediately. "We were so excited when it started. And they were so upset when no one used it. "

However, by 2014, the number of WhatsApp users has exceeded 400 million people worldwide. The application interface was interested in large corporations, and in early 2014 the founders of WhatsApp agreed to sell the company to Mark Zuckerberg for $ 19 billion.

In July 2017 WhatsApp and Twitter were among the worst companies in the level of protection of information about users from the authorities. This conclusion was made by researchers from the non-profit organization Electronic Frontier Foundation.

In the autumn of last year, the WhatsApp creators allowed users to delete messages sent by mistake.

Incrussia.ru