It's from 2009, when you were 3.
- Maker
- Koum & Acton (now Meta)
- Type
- Messaging app
- Debuted
- 2009
- Note
- Bought by Facebook for ~$19 billion in 2014
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About
As of 2026, it's 17 years old.
WhatsApp arrived in 2009 from two former Yahoo engineers, Jan Koum and Brian Acton, who reportedly built it partly after Acton was rejected for jobs at both Twitter and Facebook. The name is a pun on 'What's up?' — a level of dad-joke energy rarely rewarded so generously.
Five years later, Facebook bought it for around $19 billion, making those rejection letters age spectacularly. The app's green check marks became a global anxiety machine, with 'two blue ticks and no reply' now recognized worldwide as a relationship red flag.
Cross-platform, encrypted, and beloved everywhere outside the U.S., WhatsApp is the messaging app that connected billions — and gave grandparents the power to forward you chain messages forever.
