In August 2016, when Facebook tweaked privacy options for WhatsApp users in a headline-hogging fashion, Jan Koum, who exited the instant messenger as CEO on Monday, was not a happy man. In many a platform he repeated and reasserted that the messaging app would remain privacy-focussed and ad-less. Still, Facebook went ahead with its plans and WhatsApp technically agreed to share users’ personal information including phone numbers in order to allow Facebook’s partner businesses to send targeted messages to the users on the social media platform.

Now when Koum steps down as WhatsApp CEO, reportedly over difference with the parent company’s management and the board over their approach towards user privacy, it clearly signals fresh troubles for the social media giant, which recently got embroiled in a gigantic data misuse scandal involving its now-estranged partner Cambridge Analytica.

Journey of Koum

For starters, Koum is not your run-of-the-mill geek-CEO who is parting ways with the company he founded over managerial or personal issues. His is a real rags-to-riches story. Born in Kiev, Ukraine, Koum and his mother came to the US as immigrants when he was 16. In the initial days they had to rely on government welfare measures such as food stamps and subsidies to survive. Koum even worked as a janitor to eke out a living. Soon, he self-learned coding and landed a job at Yahoo! which he quit soon to work on a new app that would later become WhatsApp.

Koum and WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton developed the instant messaging platform with a focus on user data privacy and non-commercial use. But when outlier-turned-behemoth Facebook bought WhatsApp in 2014 in an offer it couldn’t refuse, few had anticipated the ethos of the founding team would be compromised too soon. In fact, Koum had assured users that if they had to compromise on the core principles that defined their company, vision and product, there would have been no partnership between the two companies. But it seems matters didn’t evolve that way.

Koum’s exit at this juncture shows the fundamental character of Facebook’s business model — gorging on user data — might not change any time soon. Interestingly, Facebook management was not, reportedly, so cool about WhatsApp’s end-to-end data encryption (protection) feature introduced in April 2016, which had made even more popular among users of all hues. End-to-end encryption meant that photos, videos and group text messages sent over WhatsApp would not be accessed by any third party and, hence, would not be used for commercial needs.

This, obviously, goes against Facebook’s current business model. Considering that Koum and other WhatsApp founders reportedly had serious differences over the way Facebook was trying to monetise WhatApp — including how there were building a mobile payments system on WhatsApp in India, according to media reports — Koum’s departure would cast a shadow over future of the instant messaging service, which currently has a monthly user base of 1.5 billion. Going forwards there might be a user exodus (though not in a big way) to rival services such as Telegram, Signal or WeChat.

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