Engineer Turned Down For Job By Facebook Sells His App To Facebook For 19 Billion Dollars Today

Changing jobs is a hectic thing to do. It becomes more frustrating as time progresses and you realize that not many companies let you get on board and work for them. However, every now and then we read about people, who instead of giving up, take it as a challenge and emerge victorious. Among such people, one particular engineer is Brian Acton.

The main character of our today’s post worked at Yahoo for a total of 11 years during which he assumed various positions, until finally realizing that it was time to move on. So he set out on a journey and approached a number of giant tycoons in the industry which included Twitter and Facebook. However, he was turned down by each of them. For anyone who has been working at Yahoo for 11 years, such a news would be a great setback but nope, not for Brian.

It was then that he and his colleague from Yahoo, Jan Koum, decided that it was time to do something on their own. Their efforts were materialized into creating an app that we all have used and love to use; Whatsapp. The app is quite simple and has proven that it is the top choice for users in communication apps.

Now to the main highlight of this post; the once turned down Engineer has been offered 19 billion dollars by Facebook for Whatsapp. The deal has been accepted and Whatsapp has been formally acquired by Facebook. So far what we know about their plans is that Whatsapp will continue to work as an independent app and shall not be bombarded with ads or any such nonsense. We really hope that’s true.

Good luck to Facebook (would have been better had you allowed Brian on board in the first place, no?) and as to Brian; way to go man, you really had great potential which you utilized quite well. As to our curious readers, would you like to know what Brian tweeted when Facebook rejected him? Brian tweeted and we quote; ‘Facebook turned me down. It was a great opportunity to connect with some fantastic people. Looking forward to life’s next adventure.’ His adventure sure did pay off.