Background
Acton, born in Michigan, grew up in Central Florida where he graduated from Lake Howell High School.
Acton, born in Michigan, grew up in Central Florida where he graduated from Lake Howell High School.
He later graduated from Stanford University in 1994 with a degree in computer science.
He was formerly employed at Incorporated.
In 1992, he became a systems administrator for Rockwell International, before becoming a product tester at Apple Incorporated. and Adobe Systems. In 1996, he became the 44th employee hired by Incorporated.
In 1998, January Koum was hired by as an infrastructure engineer Shortly afterward he met Acton while working at Ernst & Young as a security tester.
Over the next nine years, they worked at Acton invested in the dotcom boom and lost millions in the dot-com bubble of 2000.
In September 2007 Koum and Acton left and took a year off, traveling around South America and playing ultimate frisbee. Both applied, and failed, to work at Facebook.
In January 2009, Koum bought an iPhone and realized that the then seven-month-old App Store was about to spawn a whole new industry of apps. Koum almost immediately chose the name because it sounded like “what’s up,” and a week later on his birthday, February
24, 2009, he incorporated Incorporated. in California.
Forbes estimates that Acton held over 20% stake in the company, making his Netto worth around $3.8 billion. According to Acton"s personal Twitter feed, he was turned down for employment by both Twitter and Facebook in 2009.
