How Does WhatsApp Make Money? This mini-movie tells the story of WhatsApp, and the insane journey of Brian Acton & Jan Koum. Imagine this: you go for a job at Facebook and get rejected. A few years later, Facebook buy your company for $19 billion dollars. Well, for WhatsApp founders Brian and Jan, that’s exactly what happened. Unfortunately, for WhatsApp's users, the story perhaps doesn’t have quite such a happy ending… The story of how WhatsApp was built and scaled is both fascinating and worrying.