In 2009, a small team of engineers working in Yahoo! had the idea of creating a mobile messaging service that was easy to use, secure and affordable. After months of brainstorming, their idea became reality when WhatsApp was born.
WhatsApp was created by Jan Koum and Brian Acton. Jan Koum is a Ukrainian American computer programmer who moved to California in 1992 with his mother. He studied computer engineering at San Jose State University, and then worked for Yahoo!
from 1997 to 2007. Brian Acton, an American computer programmer who studied computer science at Stanford University, joined Yahoo! the same year as Jan Koum.
Koum and Acton left Yahoo! in 2007 with the intention of starting their own company.
They pursued various ventures but none were successful until they came up with the concept for WhatsApp. The two founded WhatsApp Inc in February 2009 and launched it later that year.
Why Did They Create WhatsApp?
Koum and Acton wanted to create something that would make communication easier and more accessible for everyone around the world. They wanted to provide people with an affordable, secure way to communicate without having to pay exorbitant fees for international calls or text messages.
The two also wanted people to be able to communicate without having to worry about their messages or conversations being monitored or tracked by a third party. This is why WhatsApp is encrypted end-to-end, meaning only the sender and receiver can see or read messages sent through the platform.
Conclusion
Jan Koum and Brian Acton created WhatsApp in 2009 with the goal of making communication more accessible, secure, and affordable for everyone around the world. With its end-to-end encryption feature providing users with privacy and security, it has become one of the most popular messaging services available today.