Jan Koum

In 1996, a restraining order was granted against Koum in state court in San Jose. He was accused of verbally and physically threatening an ex-girlfriend. More recently he expressed his regret on having behaved that way.

He lost his mother to cancer in 2000.

Jan Koum was born on February 24, 1976, in Kyiv, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union, to Jewish parents as their only child. He lived a simple life in a small town that was disrupted by the chaotic political environment and anti-Semitism in the country.

To escape the unfavorable conditions in their native land, the family decided to migrate to the United States. Jan, along with his mother and grandmother moved to the US in 1992, and his father planned to join the family later. However, his father fell ill in Ukraine and could not make it to the US. He died in 1997.

Aged 16 at the time of the immigration, Jan faced considerable challenges in adjusting to the new country. His mother took up babysitting to earn money and Jan himself began working as a cleaner at a grocery store.

He became interested in programming while at high school and discovered that he possessed an inherent knack for it. By the time he completed his schooling at 18, he was a skilled self-taught computer network engineer.

He enrolled at the San Jose State University. While still a student he took up a job with global accountants Ernst & Young as a security tester to help pay for his studies.

On his job, Jan Kuom was assigned to the new search engine Yahoo to inspect security levels at the company’s advertising system. While working on this, he became acquainted with Brian Acton, one of Yahoo’s earliest employees. The two men shared many similarities and struck up an immediate rapport as both of them had a similar no-nonsense approach to working.

After a few months Koum joined Yahoo as an infrastructure engineer, while still attending San Jose State University. A few days after his joining Yahoo suffered a systems breakdown, and Koum—who was attending a class at that time—was immediately called to help with the problem. At this juncture Koum realized that he would have to choose either the university or Yahoo, and he chose the latter.

Koum and Acton worked together at Yahoo for nine years. During this time they not only became good friends, but also realized their mutual interest in the fast growing social media world. However, Yahoo did not offer them the opportunity to explore social media, so they quit their jobs in 2007 to explore newer avenues.

Both Koum and Acton took a year off and travelled around South America. On their return to the US, both of them individually applied for jobs at Facebook and Twitter, and both were rejected by both companies.

In 2009, Koum bought a new iPhone. On visiting one of the first App Stores to open, he realized the potential offered by the market for iPhone compatible applications. This gave him the idea for an application for low-cost convenient communication.

Jan Koum, along with Brian Acton launched the WhatsApp Messenger (developed by WhatsApp Inc.) which was initially released in 2010. The instant messaging client for smartphones became the most popular messaging application in 2016. It was acquired by Facebook Inc. in 2014 for US$19 billion.