Rank #170
Jan Koum
Net worth $17.0B
WhatsApp · United States
- Born
- Feb 24, 1976
- Age
- 50
- Source
- Residence
- Atherton, California
- Citizenship
- United States
- Marital status
- Single
- Children
- 0
- Education
- Drop Out, San Jose State University
Net worth over time
Biography
- Jan Koum cofounded WhatsApp, now the world's biggest mobile messaging service, in 2009.
- Facebook bought the startup for $22 billion in cash and stock in 2014.
- He resigned as CEO of WhatsApp in 2018 and announced he would leave Facebook's board as well.
- Koum worked at Yahoo for nearly nine years before leaving to found WhatsApp.
- Now, he invests through his firm Newlands, which holds nearly 10 million shares of Facebook's parent company Meta and is building a portfolio of startups.
- Koum immigrated to California from Ukraine with his mother at age 16 and swept floors to make ends meet.
- Koum signed the deal to sell WhatsApp to Facebook in an abandoned building where he once collected food stamps as a teenager.
Financial assets
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