Photo:Trade expert and UNTACD secretary general Dr Mukhisa Kituyi, he brought China tech guru Jack Maa to Africa to explore opportunities for growth and partnerships.
By Collins Wanderi
JOBLESS, LOST A JOB & LOOKING FOR ANOTHER ONE? – Here’s Your Chance!
Brian Acton is a computer engineer from the USA. In the early 1990s he was a product tester at Apple Inc. He also worked for Adobe Systems. In 1996, Brian was hired by Yahoo Inc as its 44th employee. Brian invested a lot of his money in Internet based companies during the late 90s boom but lost nearly everything in dot.com bubble of 2000.
In September 2007, he quit employment & went on a 1 year fantasy tour in South America. By 2008 he was broke and started looking for a job. Though he had great experience of working in two large internet companies, Brian was turned down by in many places. Facebook rejected him in August 2009. Twitter also said NO to Brian. But he didn’t lose hope.
He STOPPED looking for a new job & focused on his own start-up. He teamed up with his former colleague at Yahoo and created WhatsApp which soon became the largest messaging service in the world, overtaking Facebook’s messenger in the race. In February 2014, Facebook decided to buy WhatsApp for US $ 19 Billion in stocks & shares, the biggest buy in company affairs to date. Brian had around 20% stake at WhatsApp Inc & his net worth jumped to over US $ 3 Billion. His current net worth is 2.5 Billion dollars, he’s the 836th richest person in the world, and 120th in the USA.
Together with his wife, they donated over 1 billion dollars to charity in 2019. He left WhatsApp in September 2017, abandoning a whole 850 Million dollars in the process, after disagreeing with Facebook over monetization of WhatsApp. He founded SIGNAL FOUNDATION which is widely used by journalists and human rights activists in need of untraceable private communication.
Suppose Brian had given up after rejection by Facebook and Twitter? We wouldn’t be having WhatsApp! Losing employment is not a death sentence. You still have yourself; your mind & experiential knowledge. Stop worrying; worry solves nothing & only makes you degenerate. You can’t become or get or better things if you’re not willing to lose or leave a good thing. Re-invent your life skills & success will be your portion soon. #InspirationSunday.