He leant on his good friend Acton for support and together they left Ernst & Young to work at Yahoo!. While studying he worked part-time as a security tester at Ernst & Young, where he met WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton in 1997.īy the time Jan was in his mid 20’s both his mother and father had passed away and he was living alone. Koum didn’t have the money to pay for new manuals so he bought them from a used book shop and returned them after he had read them to save money.Īfter a few years of fine-tuning his skills, Koum joined a hacker group called w00w00 in 1996 where he advanced his computer skills and networked with the future founder of Napster, Sean Fanning.Īlthough self-taught in computer programing, Koum went on to higher education and studied at San Jose State University. At 18, Koum discovered his passion for technology and taught himself computer networking through the study of manuals. The family spent the rest of his childhood in a humble 2 bedroom apartment in Mountain View, California which they obtained through a government-run support program.Īs a teenager, Koum worked as a cleaner at the local grocery store to support himself and his mother while they struggled financially, living off food stamps and government support. Koum was raised in a town just outside of Kiev for most of his young life until 1992 when he and his mother emigrated to the United States. Jan Koum was born in 1976 in Kiev, Ukraine, which was then a part of the former Soviet Union. by Arabella WaltonĬo-founder of WhatsApp, Jan Koum might be worth over $10 billion now, but life wasn’t always so easy for Koum. Photo: Barcelona, Spain, February 24, 2014.
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