Earlier this year, Jan Koum inked a $19 billion deal on the steps of where he once stood in line to collect food stamps. The rags-to-riches story of the American immigrant founder of Whatsapp, the messaging platform that brought in $20 million in revenue last year, is a heart-warming one.
Moving to California when he was 16 years old, the Ukrainian swept floors of a grocery store to help his mom make ends meet.
According to an exclusive profile by Forbes, the former Yahoo employee prides himself as being apart of the “Facebook reject group”, as he once applied to the social network site and was turned down. Ironic, considering that now Koum is estimated to be worth $6.8 billion thanks to the company.
Although $19 billion seems like a huge price tag, Mark Zuckerberg explained when purchasing the company that WhatsApp’s user growth in the first five years exceeded that of Facebook, Skype or Twitter . Koum is remaining quiet on future plans for monetization, for now the application will continue to rely on it's $1 fee that kicks in after a year of use.
One thing is for sure, Koum is not bagging groceries anymore.