Jan Koum: Co-founder of WhatsApp
Business Owner · Internet & Consumer Tech
Jan Koum arrived in California from Ukraine at 16, worked as a grocery-store cleaner and co-founded WhatsApp, which Facebook bought in 2014 for $19.3 billion.
About Jan Koum: Co-founder of WhatsApp
Jan Borysovych Koum (born February 24, 1976, in Kyiv, then in the Ukrainian SSR) is an American billionaire businessman and computer programmer, the co-founder and former CEO of WhatsApp, the mobile messaging app that Facebook acquired in 2014 for US$19.3 billion. According to Forbes he had an estimated net worth of US$15.2 billion as of October 2023, ranking 44th on its list of richest Americans. Koum was born into a Jewish family and grew up in Fastiv. In 1992, at 16, he moved with his mother and grandmother to Mountain View, California, where a social support program helped the family get a small two-bedroom apartment. His father had meant to join them but never left Ukraine and died in 1997. At first his mother worked as a babysitter while Koum worked as a cleaner at a grocery store; she died in 2000 after a long battle with cancer. By 18 Koum was interested in computer programming. He enrolled at San Jose State University while working at Ernst & Young as a security tester, and in 1997 dropped out to work as an infrastructure engineer at Yahoo!. He also joined w00w00, a computer security think tank started in 1996, where he met his future collaborators. Sources: English Wikipedia (Jan Koum, accessed September 2026).
Basic Information
Co-founder and former CEO, WhatsApp
Company Details
WhatsApp (Meta Platforms)
Messaging, Mobile Apps
Related Business Owner
Latest Articles
Alana Evans Net Worth in 2026 – Income Sources, Career & Earnings
Amy Lee Net Worth 2026: Income Sources, Evanescence Career & Personal Life
Abz Love Net Worth 2026: Five Star’s Career, TV Comeback & Income Breakdown
