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Whatsapp, the most popular mobile messaging App co-founded by Jan Koum has more than a billion users across 180 countries. Jan Koum joined Facebook in 2014 as a director in the board after Facebook acquired his Start-up whatsapp for 19.3 billion US Dollars. However Jan Koum, whatsapp developer continues to operate it as a separate app with commitment of giving the ultimate messaging experience to its users.
Founder of Whatsapp Jan Koum Biography-
Jan koum, CEO of whatsapp may be amongst the most popular personalities of USA now but he had to struggle a lot in his childhood to reach this level.
Early Childhood-
Jan Koum, the founder of whatsapp was born in Ukraine on 24th of February 1976. Jan Koum is of Jewish origin. He moved to Mountain View California in 1992 along with his mother and Grandmother. His father who stayed back in his native town, later died in the year 1996. The Father of whatsapp, Jan koun once lived in a two bed room apartment and worked as a cleaner at a grocery store. Meanwhile his interest in programming led him to join the San Jose University.
Jan Koum Career-
He worked at Earnest and Young as a Security tester while pursuing his studies. There he met Brian Acton the co-founder of whatsapp. In 1997 he was hired by Yahoo as an Infrastructure engineer. He worked for nine years at Yahoo along with Acton. Finally in 2007 they both resigned and later applied for job in Face book. Both were rejected.
Turning Point-
Jan koum came up with the Idea of whatsapp in 2009. After initial hiccups he managed to convince a few friends to use the app. The much needed funding, 250,000 dollars, was brought in by his old friend Acton who now became a co-founder along with some of his friends who worked with him in yahoo became the early whatsapp investors. Sequoia, a venture capitalist firm founded in 1972 invested 8 million dollars initially in 2011 raising its stake to 60 million dollars by 2014. The application began to gain popularity and soon became the largest messaging platform in the world. While Acton focuses on the financial aspect of the app, Jan koum looked into the technical side.
In February 2014 Facebook acquired whatsapp by leaving behind google and other tech rivals. The popularity of whatsapp said it all. Facebook invested 1/10th of its market value to acquire the messaging app.
Personal Life-
After his mother died of cancer in the year 2000. Jan found Acton to be very supportive. They both would do skiing and play soccer and ultimate Frisbee. After he and Acton quit their jobs in yahoo they went for a trip to South America. Now also after developing differences with the CEO of Facebook Mark Zukerberg who is the owner of whatsapp now, Jan koum stepped down as the board of director of Facebook.
He donated 1 million dollars to the FreeBSd Foundation and around 550 million dollars to the Silicon Valley community foundation in 2014.
Jan koum’s net worth is 8.9 billion dollars as of 2018.