Here's what you need to know about Jan Koum: His Origin Story: According to a profile by Forbes, Koum, 38, was born and raised near Kiev, Ukraine during the Soviet era. He lived as an only child in a house that didn't have hot water. He moved to Mountain View, California as a teenager with his mother, and lived off food stamps for a time. He taught himself computer programming and earned a job as an infrastructure engineer at Yahoo in the late 1990s.
After working at Yahoo for several years he decided to launch a messaging app through which people could send text messages via the Internet instead of through cellular SMS texting.
Brian Acton, a friend of Koum's at Yahoo, rallied the first seed funding for the new company was named a co-founder. His Worldview: Koum's upbringing in Ukraine gave him an appreciation for tight friend groups rather than the sprawling social networks that Americans often develop.
Koum also gained an aversion for advertising there, and has consistently railed against its use as the monetization engine of the Web. According to a Wired profile, he has a sign in his office from his co-founder that reads "No ads! No games! No gimmicks!" In a 2012 WhatsApp blog post.
Source: Time
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