According to Forbes, the deal included cash and stock. This progress prompted Mark Zuckerberg to call Koum in 2012.įacebook eventually acquired Whatsapp in 2014 for $22 billion. Soon, the app’s popularity started to steadily climb, especially in developing countries. The founders promised Whatsapp would have no games, ads and gimmicks. What set them apart from other developers and programmers was that they cared about security first and foremost. In 2009, the two built an app that allowed users to status updates on their phones. Koum and Acton tried their luck getting a job at Facebook but were turned down. Koum then transferred to Yahoo and spent nine years there, mostly working in the anti-hacker department, before being promoted as manager of infrastructure engineering. It was at Ernst and Young where he met future Whatsapp co-founder Brian Acton, who was working for Yahoo at the time.

He worked for Ernst and Young after getting a degree at San Jose State University. He finished books about computers when he was in high school. Life did not immediately improve, but the young Koum had to strive to survive. When he was 16 years old, he moved to the U.S. His rags to riches story started in Ukraine where life was so hard that his household did not have running water. But when he was younger, no one imagined he would reach where he is right now. Whatsapp founder Jan Koum is a multibillionaire. Koum clashed with Facebook over data privacy concerns.

Facebook bought Whatsapp in 2014 for a $22 billion deal.

Whatsapp llc founded