From Grocery Store Cleaner To 62nd Richest Person Of US - Read All About WhatsApp CEO

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New Delhi: Jan Koum, co-founder and CEO of the widely used mobile messaging programme WhatsApp, was born on February 24, 1976. Facebook recently purchased WhatsApp for an astounding $19 billion in February 2014.

In 2014, Forbes ranked Jan Koum as the 62nd richest person in America, with an estimated net worth of more than $7.5 billion. Here's all about the self-made businessman.

Jan Koum Background

In the remote outskirts of Kiev, Ukraine, Jan was born. Being Jewish and residing in a rural region during this time was undoubtedly difficult because it was the Soviet era. In addition to not having hot water and living in a country where most of the time it was below zero degrees, he was without electricity in his home.

Jan Koum's Family Migration

Due to their poor financial situation, they had to deal with difficulties on a regular basis, which made matters worse. Thus, in an effort to put an end to everything, they made the decision to immigrate to the United States. In 1992, Jan, his mother, and his grandmother moved to Mountain View, California.

Jan Koum Struggling Phase

On the other hand, Jan Koum had started working as a cleaner at a grocery shop at the age of 16 while his mother was a babysitter. Another tragedy struck their life just as things were starting to look normal when his mother was given a cancer diagnosis.

He completed his training in computer networking over the course of the following two years and was prepared to begin his next duty.

Jan Koum's Professional Career

He then unexpectedly developed an interest in programming and enrolled himself at San Jose State University. Along with it, he started working as a Security Tester for Ernst & Young.

After around six months of employment there, Jan received the opportunity of a lifetime when he was chosen to serve as an Infrastructure Engineer at Yahoo. He was still a student at San Jose State University at the time.

Idea Behind Founding WhatsApp

When Jan purchased an iPhone in January 2009, the App Store, which had only been around for seven months, was just getting started with the release of a wide variety of new apps. He had a wonderful idea as a result.

He went right over to West San Jose to talk about the same with a friend of his named Alex Fishman. Two passionate men and an endless cup of tea led to a lengthy conversation about the subject.

But gradually it became clear that the entire concept would not be feasible without an iPhone developer. As a result, Alex connected Jan to Igor Solomennikov, a Russian developer whom he had discovered on RentACoder.com.

Formation Of WhatsApp

Jan moved rapidly to incorporate the name "WhatsApp" in California on his birthday, February 24th, 2009. As the project moved further, they realised WhatsApp kept crashing or becoming stuck at a specific location.

But, the app was extremely successful in a short period of time. It was ranked among the top 20 apps in Apple's U.S. App Store by 2011. And in just two years, or by 2013, WhatsApp had amassed a user base of more than 200 million people and employed 50 people.