From charity to Forbes - The World

Jan Koum, Ukrainian founded 37 years WhatsApp, refused to sign the contract to sell its message service $ 19,000 million (14,000 million) in the company headquarters in Mountain View, a outside San Francisco.

He did a couple of blocks leaning on the glass door of an abandoned building formerly was an office of the county social services and still has the shadow of the detached letters . In the 90s, when he was a teenager, Koum queuing there with his mother primer to request public help with eating. On Thursday, the new billionaire wanted him, his colleague Brian Acton and investor Jim Goetz formalize the sale of the company to Facebook there. It is estimated that Koum will touch 6,800 million (almost 5,000 million euros).

Ukrainian came 16 years to the U.S. from a village near Kiev and fleeing a life in which there was no hot water at home, you could not talk politics in public and Jews were discriminated against. His father died before he could follow. His mother looked after children and young helped in a supermarket. The boy survived with time jobs and public assistance received when her mother was diagnosed with cancer. Koum not study much but learned computer with manuals used in chats and conversations hackers .

His mother died in 2000 when Koum had already achieved independence. Then he had left the University and worked as an engineer in Yahoo . There he met Acton, five years older than him and became his mentor and friend. Soon they began to share hours of ‘frisbee’ and complaints about their bosses obsession with advertising.

According

Koum by his childhood in Ukraine, always sought simplicity and avoided disturbing stimuli. What caught his attention when arriving U.S. is that “there was much hullabaloo” largely by “all the noise of advertising.”

2007 Koum and Acton left Yahoo. With their savings were spent traveling around South America and try luck with new projects. Were presented to jobs in Facebook, but the social network were not caught.

January 2009 Koum bought an iPhone and began discussions with Russian friends of possible applications. His first idea was application status updates to inform contacts someone was busy. On his birthday this year, on February 24, founded WhatsApp. I had no infrastructure and did not even clear the service.

That spring, the first basic application was a game between friends who worked only fitfully. Koum was about to abandon the idea. But his friend got him Acton early investors, Yahoo former colleagues willing to invest $ 250,000 (182,000 euros). In 2011, Sequoia, the venture capital fund, has invested eight million dollars (nearly six million euros) and the system became the major operation which, among other things, forced Koum to have more public life.

Ukrainian is little lover Press . In November 2011, explained to the Financial Times in his first interview to a newspaper: “Our personalities prevent us from seeking media coverage and attention”

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now begins to tell his story, with few selected details and connected with the features of WhatsApp. “I grew up in a society where all you did was spying, was recorded and chivaba. As a child, I had friends who got into trouble by telling stories of Communist leaders,” says in the latest issue of the magazine ‘Wired’ for justify their obsession with collecting the minimum possible data of its users. “You can read ’1984 ‘, but living there was experience,” he says. Acton says Koum is somewhat “paranoid.”

Ukrainian

Al also likes boast the country that has welcomed him. “WhatsApp Messenger: made in the USA The land of the free and the home of the brave.” ‘Tweeted’ last May with the letter Spangled

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One of his latest ‘tweets’ is dedicated to Ukraine, with pictures of violence in the streets and a simple message, without getting into the merits “Praying for peace and a quick solution the crisis, “.