WhatsApp Founder Jan Koum: From Refugee to Billionaire
This vision led to WhatsApp, which has become a part of daily life for billions of users.
Kathmandu. WhatsApp has become a popular communication tool used by billions of people around the world. This platform was created by a young refugee from a poor family, Jan Koum.
Jan Koum is born in 1976 to a Jewish family in Ukraine. He is the only child of a construction manager father and a homemaker mother. Due to the difficulties they faced in the former Soviet Union, Jan’s parents were afraid to even talk on the phone, fearing government surveillance.
In 1991, when the Soviet Union fell apart, Jan and his mother moved to Mountain View, California. They struggled with many financial challenges. At that time, Jan took a job as a cleaner in a supermarket to help support his family. They had to rely on government assistance to make ends meet.
Soon after, Jan’s mother was diagnosed with cancer, which made life even harder. They lived on food stamps and disability insurance.
Despite the challenges, Jan developed an interest in computer programming by the age of 18. He began teaching himself from manuals. While studying, he enrolled at San Jose University and got a chance to work as a security tester at Ernst & Young in his first year.
To gain more experience, he also worked at a computer security company called uU. It was during this time that Jan met Brian Acton. In 1997, Jan landed a job at Yahoo. He dropped out of college and worked there with Brian for nine years.
However, in 2009, both of them decided to leave their jobs at Yahoo to work on a startup, which led to the creation of WhatsApp.
The Rise of WhatsApp
Jan and Brian aimed to prioritise user privacy and not turn the platform into an advertising or data monetisation tool. Their sole purpose was to create a platform where people could easily and securely communicate with family and friends.
This vision led to WhatsApp, which has become a part of daily life for billions of users. It has made information sharing more convenient and employs end-to-end encryption to keep user conversations secure.
Having grown up in a heavily monitored country, Jan explains that WhatsApp is designed with user privacy in mind.
“I grew up in a society where everything you did was watched and recorded, and people would falsely accuse you,” he says. “There was always a fear that the government was listening in on phone calls. I understand how important the right to privacy is.”
The name WhatsApp comes from a common phrase in America, “What’s App?” The first version of the app was made available in the app store, but unfortunately, it failed to attract users and had many bugs.