AMAZING! A CLEANER SUDDENLY BECAME A BILLIONNAIRE

I have seen many successful people in the world being celebrated. The great ones with great accumulated wealth are being ranked yearly by Forbes. Indeed, it usually appears that their lives are perfect. Meanwhile, a critical analysis of their background revealed that most of them actually tasted lives of hardship before striking gold. They tapped into their inner strength to move on despite the obstacles and never gave in. These people are just ordinary persons, who pushed beyond limits. The story of Koum Jan is a clear example of a nonentity turned famous.

February 19, 2015 marks a year that Jan Koum, the CEO and co-founder of Whatsapp, signed off his invention to Facebook for $16 billion. Until this acquisition last year, little was known about Jan. His sudden rise is assumed to be the most dramatic among his sphere such like Zuckerberg, Linda Ikeji, Biz Stone and Christian Gheorghe . His meteoric rise to fame was over newspaper. This also prompted organisations like Forbes and wire to create spotlight on him.

Koum is Jewish .He was raised in a small village (Fastiv), outside Kiev in Ukraine. Kiev is a cool temperate region. He lived with his parents in house with no hot water. He attended Elementary School in Ukraine. The school was so run-down that it didn't even have an inside bathroom. Imagine the Ukrainian winter, -20°C, where little kids have to stroll across the parking lot to use the bathroom. Society was extremely closed off: you can read 1984, but living there was experiencing it, he said.

The increase in political instability and anti-Semitism in Ukraine was becoming alarming. Students were on daily basis questioned for mocking politicians in class. All these factors necessitated the relocation of Koum with his mother and grandmother to Mountain View in California in 1992 when he was 16. The family relied on social support to get a small two-bedroom apartment. His father had intended to join the family later, but finally remained in Ukraine. He died in 1997.

The family was short of cash. His mother, in the quest to survive, worked as a babysitter while he worked as a cleaner in a grocery department. Unfortunately,His mother was diagnosed with cancer and they lived off her disability payments. What a pity! His mother eventually died in 2000.Then, Koum became an orphan.

By the age of 18, he became interested in programming. He could not afford to buy a computer until 19. He bought a manual at a USED bookstore and taught himself computer networking .He enrolled at San Jose State University and simultaneously worked at Ernst & Young as a security tester. His job involved inspecting Yahoo's advertising system. He met Brian Acton (Cofounder of Whatsapp.), who was employee at Yahoo.

In 1997, Jan Koum was hired by Yahoo as an infrastructure engineer. In September 2007, Koum and Acton left Yahoo and took a year off, traveling around South America playing ultimate Frisbee.

Within 2008 and 2009, the idea of whatsapp sprung up. Koum bought an iPhone and was frustrated with his gym's no-cellphone-calls policy. His frustration grew when he forgot the password to his Skype account several times. He was determined to create an app that worked seamlessly on one's iPhone by using a phone number for identification.

He visited his friend Alex Fishman and they talked for hours about Koum’s idea for an app over tea at Fishman’s kitchen counter. Koum chose the name WhatsApp because it sounded like “what’s up,” and a week later on his birthday, Feb. 24, 2009, he incorporated WhatsApp Inc. in California

At a time, it seems WhatsApp was still going nowhere, but Koum persuaded Acton to join him. Koum applied for a job in Facebook and was turned down, Acton was also rebuffed by Twitter.

Nevertheless, they came back after the disappointment and contacted their former colleagues in Yahoo to raise $250,000 in seed money. The company leased space in the same building with Evernote, which later took over the whole space and kicked them out. The office furniture was cheap stuff from IKEA and employees wore blankets when it got cold.

As at early 2010, WhatsApp was generating on the average $5,000 a month. Things steadily improved until the company's breakthrough year, 2011, when WhatsApp hit the top 20 in Apple's App Store.

In February 2014, Facebook acquired Whatsapp and the signing of the contract was at the historical place – the North County Social Services building where Koum once stood in line for food stamps. It was not far from their 2 bedroom apartment.

Koum was reported to be part of a group of Hackers called W00w00, where he met Founders of Napster, Shawn Fanning and Jordan Ritter

Forbes estimated Koum’s wealth at $6.8 billion and just months after his company was acquired, Koum made a serious turn to philanthropy, quietly making a $556 million donation to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation and in November 2014, he donated $1,000,000 to the FreeBSD Foundation. Koum officially joined Facebook's board. Like many other CEOs in Silicon Valley, he agreed to a yearly base salary of $1, with stock options worth nearly $2 billion.

Bottom Line

Life is not fair and it would remain unfair till the end of the world; the onus is on you to make life fair, better or be a best place to live for you and the generations unborn.

No one is ready to shoulder your problems, you have the sole responsibility to gather your inner ability and respond to the challenges. You must WIN. 

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Photo Credit: Social Times