By leaving Facebook to play Frisbee, WhatsApp co-founder to lose $1 billion

Jan Koum’s exit from Facebook Inc. could prove costly. A speedy departure may prevent him from collecting as much as $1 billion in stock awards.

The chief executive officer of messaging unit WhatsApp confirmed in a Facebook post-Monday afternoon that he was leaving the company. The announcement comes before the final three vesting dates of restricted stock unit awards tied to Facebook’s $22 billion purchase of WhatsApp in 2014.

Koum, 42, got about 24.9 million restricted shares as part of the deal. The stock vests in increments until late 2018, with 1.9 million shares due to vest in mid-May and mid-August, plus a final tranche of 2.1 million set to be issued in November.

The awards are contingent on him still being employed through those dates. He would forfeit 5.8 million shares, worth $997.5 million as of Monday’s close, if he left before May 15, unless his exit is categorized as an involuntary termination or a good-reason resignation, regulatory filings show.

Facebook trying to weaken WhatsApp privacy? Co-founder Jan Koum quits

The co-founder of WhatsApp, a messaging service owned by Facebook Inc with more than 1 billion daily users, said on Monday he was leaving the company, in a loss of one of the strongest advocates for privacy inside Facebook.

Jan Koum's plan to exit comes after clashing with the parent company over WhatApp's strategy and Facebook's attempts to use its personal data and weaken its encryption, the Washington Post earlier reported, citing people familiar with the internal discussions.

"It's been almost a decade since Brian and I started WhatsApp, and it's been an amazing journey with some of the best people," Koum, WhatsApp's chief executive, said in a post on his Facebook page referring to co-founder Brian Acton.

"But it is time for me to move on." He did not give a date for his departure and could not immediately be reached for comment.

Acton left the messaging service company in September to start a foundation, after spending eight years with WhatsApp.

WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton leaving company to start his own foundation

Brian Acton, co-founder of WhatsApp, now owned by Facebook Inc, will leave the messaging service company to start a new foundation, he said in a Facebook post on Tuesday.

Acton spent eight years with WhatsApp, which Facebook bought in 2014 for $19 billion in cash and stock.

A Stanford alumnus, Acton co-founded WhatsApp with Ukrainian immigrant Jan Koum in 2009. The duo worked at Yahoo before starting WhatsApp.
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