Jan Koym, CEO and co-founder of WhatsApp has confirmed in a Facebook post that he is now all-set to leave Facebook.
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. But it is time for me to move on. I've been blessed to work with such an incredibly small team and see how a crazy amount of focus can produce an app used by so many people all over the world.
I'm leaving at a time when people are using WhatsApp in more ways than I could have imagined. The team is stronger than ever and it'll continue to do amazing things. I'm taking some time off to do things I enjoy outside of technology, such as collecting rare air-cooled Porsches, working on my cars and playing ultimate frisbee. And I'll still be cheering WhatsApp on – just from the outside. Thanks to everyone who has made this journey possible.
Considering the departure, he is also stepping down from the Facebook's board of directors.
The announcement of the departure followed shortly after The Washington Post that Koum will leave due to disagreements with Facebook management about WhatsApp's user data privacy and weakened encryption.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded to the post by commenting:
I'm grateful for everything you've done to help connect the world, and for everything you've taught me, including about encryption and its ability to take power from centralized systems and put it back in people's hands. Those values will always be at the heart of WhatsApp.
The reason actually is the user's privacy as WhatsApp began sharing some of its users personal data with Facebook in 2016, in order to improve ad targeting which went against WhatsApp's promising motives to their users.
WhatsApp's co-founder Brian Acton told Forbes earlier in 2014 that
Dealing with ads is depressing...You don’t make anyone’s life better by making advertisements work better.It has been a long journey for Jan with WhatsApp, he has been with the company for 3.5 years after Facebook acquired it.
Read next: UNICEF Australia asks users to mine cryptocurrency on their computers to help children in Bangladesh