Jan Koum
Jan Koum
Jan Koumis a Ukrainian-American internet inventor and computer programmer. He is the CEO and co-founder of WhatsApp, a mobile messaging application which was acquired by Facebook Inc. in February 2014 for US$19 Billion...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinessman
Date of Birth24 February 1976
CountryUnited States of America
coming growing immigrant itself later life reflects shape youth
A lot of what I experienced growing up in the U.S.S.R. and coming to the U.S. as an immigrant actually reflects itself in Whatsapp. Experiences from our youth shape what we do later in life.
chance education focus gave life living positives soviet
There were a lot of negatives, of course, but there were positives to living a life unfettered by possessions. It gave us the chance to focus on education, which was very important in the Soviet Union.
anybody build great next sell
Anybody can build a company and sell the company the next day. That doesn't make you special, it doesn't make you unique, it doesn't make you all that great.
advertising
When advertising is involved, you, the user, are the product.
communication society
Communication is at the very core of our society. That's what makes us human.
advertising code collect disruption insults intelligence personal portion sells spends train
Advertising isn't just the disruption of aesthetics, the insults to your intelligence and the interruption of your train of thought. At every company that sells ads, a significant portion of their engineering team spends their day tuning data mining, writing better code to collect all your personal data.
adding bringing engineers features fixing interested ironing phone reliable simply spend task time
At WhatsApp, our engineers spend all their time fixing bugs, adding new features and ironing out all the little intricacies in our task of bringing rich, affordable, reliable messaging to every phone in the world. That's our product, and that's our passion. Your data isn't even in the picture. We are simply not interested in any of it.
apartment ask became call family grew knock load neighbours people resource shared telephone
I grew up in Russia. We had a telephone line, but a load of our neighbours didn't. It became a shared resource for the whole apartment complex. People would come and knock on the door and ask to call their family in another city.
conversation country grew walls
I grew up in a country where I remember my parents not being able to have a conversation on the phone. The walls had ears, and you couldn't speak freely.
advertising country
I grew up in a country where advertising doesn't exist.
calls companies expensive family kid navigate phone trying
When I was a kid trying to communicate with family in the Soviet Union, it was very difficult. You had to go through the long-distance phone companies like MCI, which were difficult to navigate and expensive to make calls through.
build continue
I only have one idea, that is WhatsApp, and I am going to continue to focus on that. I have no plans to build any other ideas.
build common companies great none staying yahoo
Facebook, Google, Apple, Yahoo - there's a common theme. None of these companies ever sold. By staying independent, they were able to build a great company.
team writing engineering
Advertising isnt just the disruption of aesthetics, the insults to your intelligence and the interruption of your train of thought. At every company that sells ads, a significant portion of their engineering team spends their day tuning data mining, writing better code to collect all your personal data.