Brian Acton

Brian Acton (born 1972) is an American computer programmer and Internet entrepreneur. He is the co-founder (with Jan Koum) of WhatsApp, a mobile messaging application which was acquired by Facebook Inc. in February 2014 for US$19 billion. He was formerly employed at Yahoo Inc.

Education and early career

Acton, born in Michigan, grew up in Central Florida where he graduated from Lake Howell High School. He later graduated from Stanford University in 1994 with a degree in computer science. In 1992, he became a systems administrator for Rockwell International, before becoming a product tester at Apple Inc. and Adobe Systems. In 1996, he became the 44th employee hired by Yahoo Inc.

Yahoo

In 1998, Jan Koum was hired by Yahoo as an infrastructure engineer. Shortly afterward he met Acton while working at Ernst & Young as a security tester. Over the next nine years, they worked at Yahoo. Acton invested in the dotcom boom and lost millions in the dot-com bubble of 2000. In September 2007 Koum and Acton left Yahoo and took a year off, traveling around South America and playing ultimate frisbee. Both applied, and failed, to work at Facebook. In January 2009, Koum bought an iPhone and realized that the then seven-month-old App Store was about to spawn a whole new industry of apps. He visited his friend Alex Fishman and talked about developing an app. Koum almost immediately chose the name WhatsApp because it sounded like “what’s up,” and a week later on his birthday, Feb. 24, 2009, he incorporated WhatsApp Inc. in California.

Brian

Brian (sometimes spelled Bryan) is a male given name of Irish and Breton origin, as well as a surname of Occitan origin. It is common in the English-speaking world. It is possible that the name is derived from an Old Celtic word meaning "high" or "noble". For example, the element bre means "hill"; which could be transferred to mean "eminence" or "exalted one". The name is quite popular in Ireland, on account of Brian Boru, a 10th-century king of Ireland. The name was also quite popular in East Anglia during the Middle Ages. This is because the name was introduced to England by Bretons following the Norman Conquest. Bretons also settled in Ireland along with the Normans in the 12th century, and 'their' name was mingled with the 'Irish' version. Also, in the north-west of England, the 'Irish' name was introduced by Scandinavian settlers from Ireland. Within the Gaelic speaking areas of Scotland, the name was at first only used by professional families of Irish origin. It was the fourth most popular male name in England and Wales in 1934, but a sharp decline followed over the remainder of the 20th century and by 1994 it had fallen out of the top 100. It retained its popularity in the United States for longer; its most popular period there was from 1968–1979 when it consistently ranked between eighth and tenth.

The Larry Sanders Show

The Larry Sanders Show is an American television sitcom set in the office and studio of a fictional late-night talk show. The show was created by Garry Shandling and Dennis Klein and aired from August 1992 to May 1998 on the HBO cable television network. The series stars Shandling, Jeffrey Tambor, and Rip Torn and features celebrities playing exaggerated, self-parodying versions of themselves. The show has its roots in Shandling's stand-up comedy background, his experience as a guest host on The Tonight Show and his earlier sitcom It's Garry Shandling's Show. The program has had a marked and long-lasting influence on HBO as well as on television shows in America and Britain such as Curb Your Enthusiasm, 30 Rock and The Office. The supporting cast includes Janeane Garofalo, Bob Odenkirk, Kathryn Harrold, Scott Thompson and Jeremy Piven.

Regarded as an influential and landmark series, it ranked 38 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time, the only HBO comedy to make the list, and was also included in Time magazine's list of the "100 Best TV Shows of All Time."

Brian Griffin

Brian Griffin is fictional character from the animated television series Family Guy. An anthropomorphic white dog, voiced by Seth MacFarlane, he is one of the show's main characters and a member of the Griffin family. He primarily works in the series as a struggling writer, attempting essays, novels, screenplays and newspaper articles.

He first appeared on television, along with the rest of the family, in a 15-minute short on December 20, 1998. Brian was created and designed by MacFarlane himself. MacFarlane was asked to pitch a pilot to the Fox Broadcasting Company, based on The Life of Larry and Larry & Steve, two shorts made by MacFarlane featuring a middle-aged character named Larry and an intellectual dog, Steve. After the pilot was given the green light, the Griffin family appeared in the episode "Death Has a Shadow". Brian's appearance is a redesign of Steve the dog, from MacFarlane's previous show.

Brian has been featured in many items of merchandise for Family Guy, and he is considered to be one of the show's biggest merchandising icons. He has also made crossover appearances in the other MacFarlane-produced shows American Dad! and The Cleveland Show.

Acton

Acton may refer to:

Places

Antarctica

Australia

Canada

United Kingdom

Also:

Acton (UK Parliament constituency)

Acton was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, created for the 1918 general election. It elected one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first-past-the-post system of election.

The constituency was abolished for the 1983 general election, and replaced by the new Ealing Acton constituency.

Boundaries

The constituency came into existence in 1918, as a division of the county of Middlesex, to the west of the County of London. It was based on the town of Acton, which like most of Middlesex in the twentieth century became part of the London conurbation. The seat consisted of the Acton Urban District, which became a Municipal Borough in 1921.

In the redistribution of Parliamentary seats, which took effect at the United Kingdom general election, 1950, there was no change to the boundaries. However the constituency was re-classified as a borough constituency.

In 1965 the area became part of the London Borough of Ealing and Greater London.

Acton, Massachusetts

Acton is an affluent suburban town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States about twenty-one miles west-northwest of Boston along Route 2 west of Concord and about ten miles (18 km) southwest of Lowell. The population was 21,929 at the 2010 census and ranked 35th on the list of highest-income places with a population of at least 10,000. It is bordered by Westford and Littleton to the north, Concord and Carlisle to the east, Stow, Maynard, and Sudbury to the south, and Boxborough to the west. Acton became an incorporated town in 1735. The town employs the Open Town Meeting form of government with a Town Manager and an elected, 5-member Board of Selectmen. Acton was named the 11th Best Place To Live among small towns in the country by Money Magazine in 2015, and the 16th best in 2009 and in 2011. The local high school, Acton-Boxborough Regional High School, was named a Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education in 2009. In 2012, U.S. News & World Report ranked Acton-Boxborough #3 among open enrollment high schools and #7 overall for STEM education in the United States.[6]