Moxie Marlinspike, the founder of Signal, is stepping down as head of the messaging app. The organization is looking for a successor, but Brian Acton takes his place for now.
Marlinspike worked on Signal for almost ten years. In a blog post, he explains that he was almost the only one working on it full-time and therefore had to be available for any malfunction or incident until four years ago.
Today that task is carried out by a team of thirty people, and he sees an opportunity to take a step back. Marlinspike will remain on the board of directors.
Signal itself is now looking for a new CEO, but in the meantime, he will be succeeded ad interim by Brian Acton. Acton is the co-founder of competitor WhatsApp, which was sold to Facebook a few years ago.
Acton initially moved along but left the company after a disagreement with Facebook’s top executives.
