Jan Koum: Swept a shop floor at 16, built a messaging app at 33
He arrived in California from Ukraine at 16, his family relying on food stamps while he swept floors in a grocery shop. Years of steady work as a tester came before WhatsApp.
A new country at 16
Jan Koum was born in 1976 near Kyiv, Ukraine. In 1992 he and his mother moved to Mountain View, California, where they lived in a small flat on government help, including food stamps. He swept floors in a grocery shop while his mother babysat.
Teaching himself
He taught himself computer networking from second hand manuals, then worked as a security tester at an accounting firm. In 1997 he joined Yahoo as an engineer, where he worked with Brian Acton for nine years.
Both turned down
After leaving Yahoo in 2007 the two of them took a long break. In 2009 Acton applied to work at Facebook and was turned down, and said so publicly on social media.
What came of it
In 2009 Koum started WhatsApp, a simple messaging app, and Acton joined him. In 2014 Koum signed the agreement selling it to Facebook against the door of the old welfare office in Mountain View where he had once queued for food stamps.
A rejection letter from a company does not mean the work is wrong for you. Years of steady, unglamorous testing work gave him the skills to build something simple that worked.
Where the facts come from: Parmy Olson, 'Exclusive: The Rags-To-Riches Tale Of How Jan Koum Built WhatsApp', Forbes, February 2014.
