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
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.
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.
ad came faucet flipped switch turned watch
Utilities get out of the way. Can you imagine if you flipped a light switch and had to watch an ad before you got electricity? Can you imagine if you turned on a faucet and had to watch an ad before the water came out?
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.
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.
sexy perspective people
We focus a lot on the quality of experience, speed, reliability. It’s not sexy from a lot of people’s perspective, it’s not glitzy in the feature set, but it’s what people come to rely on.
computer abacus
I didnt have a computer until I was 19 - but I did have an abacus.
simple
Be simple and reliable
eye dust marketing
Marketing and press kicks up dust. It gets in your eye, and then you’re not focusing on the product.
home gps data
You don't have to give us your name and we don't ask for your email address. We don't know your birthday. We don't know your home address. We don't know where you work. We don't know your likes, what you search for on the internet or collect your GPS location. None of that data has ever been collected and stored by WhatsApp, and we really have no plans to change that.