Signal founder Moxie Marlinspike steps down as CEO

Over the past few months, Signal founder Moxie Marlinspike has been talking to candidates who can potentially take over his role as company CEO. That’s what Marlinspike has revealed in a post about stepping away his role over the next month, where he talked about struggling to do almost everything on his own before the Signal Foundation was formed four years ago. The foundation provided the encrypted messaging app with $50 million in funding from WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton, giving Signal the money it needed to be able to hire people and expand. 

Before it had access to the funding, Marlinspike said he was writing all the Android and server code, facilitating all product development and solving issues the service may have had on his own. Now, he said, Signal is a group of 30 people who each have their roles, and he can switch off his phone without having to worry that the service would implode. “In other words, after a decade or more, it’s difficult to overstate how important Signal is to me, but I now feel very comfortable replacing myself as CEO based on the team we have, and also believe that it is an …read more