What is Jan Koum net worth?
| Jan Koum net worth 2023 | $12 billion |
|---|---|
| Full name | Yan Borisovich Kum |
| Date of birth | February 24, 1976 |
| Occupation | businessman and computer engineer |
| Nationality | Ukrainian-American |
Jan Koum Net Worth and Biography
Jan Koum net worth 2023 is estimated at $12 billion making him one of the most successfully businessmen. He cofounded WhatsApp, now the world’s biggest mobile messaging which was later sold to Facebook(now Meta) for $22 billion in cash and stock. Before founding WhatsApp, Kuom had worked for Yahoo for nine years.
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Early life and Education
Koum was born in Kyiv, then in the Ukrainian SSR, on February 24, 1976. He grew up in Fastiv. In 1992, at the age of 16, he moved with his mother and grandmother to Mountain View, California.
By the age of 18, Koum had become interested in programming. He enrolled at San Jose State University and simultaneously worked at Ernst & Young as a security tester. He also joined w00w00, a computer security think tank started in 1996, where he met future Napster creators Shawn Fanning and Jordan Ritter.
Career
In 1997, Koum met Brian Acton while working at Ernst & Young. Later that year, he was hired by Yahoo! as an infrastructure engineer. He quit school shortly thereafter. Over the next nine years, Koum and Acton worked at Yahoo! together.
In September 2007, they left and took a year off, traveling around South America and playing ultimate frisbee. Both applied to work at Facebook but were rejected.
Founding Whatsapp
In January 2009, Koum bought an iPhone and realized that the then seven-month-old App Store was about to spawn a whole new industry of apps. He visited his friend Alex Fishman and they talked for hours about Koum’s idea for an app. Koum almost immediately chose the name WhatsApp because it sounded like “what’s up”. A week later, on his 33rd birthday, he incorporated WhatsApp Inc. in California.
The fortunes of Whatsapp began to turn after Apple added push notification ability to apps in June 2009. Koum changed WhatsApp to “ping” users when they received a message, and soon afterward he and Fishman’s Russian friends in the area began to use WhatsApp as a messaging tool, in place of SMS.
The app gained a large user base, and Koum convinced Acton, then unemployed, to join the company. Koum granted Acton co-founder status after Acton managed to bring in $250,000 in seed funding.
On February 9, 2014, Zuckerberg asked Koum to have dinner at his home, and formally proposed Koum a deal to join the Facebook board. Ten days later Facebook announced that it was acquiring WhatsApp for US$19 billion.
Over the first half of 2016, Koum sold more than $2.4 billion worth of Facebook stock, which was about half of his total holdings.
In April 2018, Koum announced that he was leaving WhatsApp and stepping down from Facebook’s board of directors due to disputes with Facebook.
Personal Life
Kuom is Jewish and has several times expressed his dislike for being called and entrepreneur. To him, entrepreneurs have money making motives whereas he is cut out to making useful products for mankind.
Jan Koum Net Worth
Koum has donated $1.15 billion of Facebook stock to charitable entities, including to his Koum Family Foundation. In 2014, Koum donated $1 million to The FreeBSD Foundation and close to $556 million to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF). In 2016, he donated another $500,000 to The FreeBSD Foundation, followed by $250,000 donations in 2018 and 2019.
Source: Glusea
