[okneil]

Great to see Brian Acton (founder of WhatsApp) taking over as interim CEO and the logical choice.

[capableweb]

Hopefully remains as interim. I'm still suspicious based on previous experience with him selling Whatsapp to Facebook and all that. Actually, very surprising move, are they planning to sell Signal?

[nicoburns]

Obviously you can't be sure he's sincere, but he's on record as saying he regrets that sale.

[s17n]

They incorporated Signal as a nonprofit, so it is illegal for anybody to personally profit from the sale of Signal. Of course, that hasn't always stopped people from trying (eg, the recent debacle with the .org tld).

[lelandbatey]

Given that Brian Acton apparently "left over a dispute with Facebook regarding monetization of WhatsApp, and voluntarily left $850 million in unvested options on the table by leaving a few months before vesting was completed"[0] and that he went on to found the Signal Foundation one year later with Moxie Marlinspike in 2018, I feel it's not a super clear signal that Acton or Marlinspike are trying to "sell" Signal.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Acton#WhatsApp

[zzzbra]

I can't imagine they intend to sell Signal but then when I say "they" it's always been a stand in for Marlinspike. We can only hope he's correct in terms of the team he's built continuing the mission that had formerly been guided by his judgment.

[marricks]

He did leave Facebook because of privacy issues right? That should be a good sign…

[lovecg]

I wouldn’t be so sure. He also benefitted greatly from selling it to Facebook in the first place, and stayed on for a few years.

[izacus]

Hopefully that means he'll prioritize things that are making Signal a hard sell to WhatsApp and Telegram users.

Making Signal a messenger on equal footing would go a long way to increase adoption.