Jan Koum
Jan Koum | |
---|---|
Jan Koum (left) with Brian Acton | |
Native name | Ян Кум |
Born |
Kyiv, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union | February 24, 1976
Citizenship | United States |
Alma mater | San Jose State University (dropped out) |
Occupation | CEO of WhatsApp & Managing Director in Facebook, Inc. |
Years active | 2009 present |
Organization | WhatsApp Inc. |
Known for | Co-founded WhatsApp |
Home town | Fastiv, Ukraine |
Net worth | US$9.7 billion (May 2016)[1] |
Jan Koum (Ukrainian: Ян Кум; born February 24, 1976) is a Ukrainian-American internet inventor[2] and computer programmer. He is the CEO and co-founder of WhatsApp (with Brian Acton), a mobile messaging application which was acquired by Facebook Inc. in February 2014 for US$19 billion.
In 2014, he entered the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans at position 62, with an estimated worth of more than seven and half billion dollars. He was the highest-ranked newcomer to the list that year.[3]
Life and career
Koum was born in Kyiv, Ukraine. He is Jewish.[4] He grew up in Fastiv, outside Kyiv, and moved with his mother and grandmother to Mountain View, California in 1992,[5] where a social support program helped the family to get a small two-bedroom apartment,[6] at the age of 16. His father had intended to join the family later, but finally remained in Ukraine.[7] At first Koum's mother worked as a babysitter, while he himself worked as a cleaner at a grocery. By the age of 18 he became interested in programming. He enrolled at San Jose State University and simultaneously worked at Ernst & Young as a security tester.[6]
In February 1996, a restraining order was granted against Koum in state court in San Jose, California. An ex-girlfriend detailed incidents in which she said Koum verbally and physically threatened her. In October 2014, Koum said about the restraining order, "I am ashamed of the way I acted, and ashamed that my behavior forced her to take legal action".[8]
In 1997, Jan Koum was hired by Yahoo as an infrastructure engineer, shortly after he met Brian Acton while working at Ernst & Young as a security tester.[6] Over the next nine years, they worked at Yahoo. 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, he 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 the two talked for hours about Koum's idea for an app over tea at Fishman's kitchen counter.[6] Koum almost immediately chose the name WhatsApp because it sounded like "what's up", and a week later on his birthday, February 24, 2009, he incorporated WhatsApp Inc. in California.[6]
WhatsApp became popular in just a small amount of time, and this caught Facebook's attention. Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg first contacted Koum in the spring 2012. The two began meeting at a coffee shop in Los Altos, California, then began a series of dinners and walks in the hills above Silicon Valley. [9]
On February 9, 2014 Zuckerberg asked Koum to have dinner at his home, and formally proposed Koum a deal to join the Facebook board - 10 days later Facebook announced it was acquiring WhatsApp for US$19 Billion USD.[10][11][12][13][14]
Over the first half of 2016, Koum sold more than $2.4 billion worth of Facebook stock, which was about a half of his total holdings. He is estimated to still own another $2.4 billion in Facebook stock.[15]
His mother died in 2000 of cancer in the United States, while his father died in Ukraine in 1997.
Trivia
Jan Koum was part of a group of hackers called w00w00, where he met[6][16] the future founders of Napster, Shawn Fanning and Jordan Ritter.
In November 2014, Koum donated $1,000,000 to The FreeBSD Foundation, and close to $556 million to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF) the same year.[17]
References
- ↑ http://www.forbes.com/profile/jan-koum/
- ↑ "Why WhatsApp's Founder Hates Being Called An Entrepreneur". Retrieved 2016-07-22.
- ↑ Forbes Announces Its 33rd Annual Forbes 400 Ranking Of The Richest Americans; 29 September 2014, Forbes.com, accessed 12 November 2014
- ↑ "WhatsApp Founder Jan Koum's Jewish Rags-to-Riches Tale". The Jewish Daily Forward. Reuters. 20 February 2014. Retrieved 1 March 2014.
- ↑ Rowan, David. "WhatsApp: The inside story (Wired UK)". Wired.co.uk. Retrieved 2014-02-20.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Parmy Olson (February 19, 2014). "Exclusive: The Rags-To-Riches Tale Of How Jan Koum Built WhatsApp Into Facebook's New $19 Billion Baby". Forbes. Retrieved February 20, 2014..
- ↑ WhatsApp: Jan Koum – The Story Of A Man Who Kept It Simple, Jewish Business News, Feb 20th, 2014
- ↑ De Jong, David (2014-10-20). "Facebook's Jan Koum Apologizes for Past Restraining Order". Bloomberg.
- ↑ "The Memories from Rags-to-Riches by Jan Koum". Eyerys. Retrieved May 15, 2015.
- ↑ Olson, Parmy (2009-02-24). "Exclusive: The Rags-To-Riches Tale Of How Jan Koum Built WhatsApp Into Facebook's New $19 Billion Baby". Forbes. Retrieved 2014-02-20.
- ↑ "Facebook acquires WhatsApp in massive deal worth $19 billion - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)". Abc.net.au. Retrieved 2014-02-20.
- ↑ "WhatsApp Founders Are Low Key — And Now Very Rich". Mashable.com. 2013-10-26. Retrieved 2014-02-20.
- ↑ "WhatsApp's Founder Goes From Food Stamps to Billionaire". Bloomberg News. Retrieved February 20, 2014.
- ↑ Wood, Zoe (February 20, 2014). "Facebook turned down WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton for job in 2009". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 February 2014.
- ↑ http://www.insidermole.com/insider/koum-jan Koum Jan Insider Trading
- ↑ http://network2.tv/january-kum-communist-ukraine-to-19-billion-whatsapp/
- ↑ "No. 4: Jan Koum - Philanthropy". Philanthropy.com. 8 February 2015.