As one of the most talked-about figures, Jan Koum has built a significant fortune. Our team analyzed the latest data to provide a clear picture of their income.
What is Jan Koum's Net Worth and Salary?
In April 2018, Jan announced his intention to leave Facebook and step down from the company's board of directors. Up to that point, he had already converted a little more than$7 billion worth of Facebook shares into cash. At the time of his announcement, it was reported that he would be forfeiting around $1 billion worth of shares by departing. In fact, Jan stayed at the company for another five months, vesting a little more thanhalf of that reported $1 billion. When he did finally leave the company, he did indeed leave $450 million worth of shares on the table.
By the time he turned 18, Koum was fascinated by programming. He entered San Jose State University and worked as a security tester at Ernst & Young, where he met Brian Acton. Jan also joined a group of hackers called w00w00, where he met the future founders of Napster.
In 2009, Koum purchased an iPhone and realized the App Store was on the verge of releasing a whole new app industry. Jan had an idea for an app, so he visited his friend Alex Fishman, and they spoke for hours about Koum's idea. He named the app WhatsApp because of its similar sound to "what's up." One month later, Jan incorporated WhatsApp Inc. in California.
Jan Koum was born on February 24th, 1976, in Kyiv, Ukraine, which, at the time, was part of the Soviet Union. He grew up near Kyiv in the city of Fastiv. In 1992, when Jan was 16, he immigrated to Mountain View, California, with his mother and grandmother. A social support program helped the family move into a small, two-bedroom apartment.
Koum's father intended to join the family later, but he ended up never leaving Ukraine. At first, Jan worked as a cleaner at a local grocery store while his mother worked as a babysitter.Jan and his mother relied on food stampsfrom a local welfare office to get by.
Jan Koum is a Ukrainian-born internet entrepreneur who has a net worth of $17 billion. Jan Koum earned his fortune as the co-founder and former CEO of the popular messaging service WhatsApp. Koum and his co-founder, Brian Acton, sold WhatsApp to Facebook in February 2014 for$19 billion in cash and stock. Koum's personal stake in the company was valued at approximately $8.55 billion at the time of the acquisition.
At first, WhatsApp was unpopular. But it began to be used more frequently after Apple gave apps the ability to use push notifications in 2006. Koum made WhatsApp "ping" users when they received a message, and soon after, his friends in the area began using the app in place of SMS. Jan's app began to gain a large user base, and he convinced his friend Brian Acton to join the company. Koum offered Acton co-founder status after Acton brought in $250,000 in seed funding.
In late 1997, Koum was hired as an infrastructure engineer for Yahoo! Shortly after, he quit school to work full-time. Jan became good friends withBrian Acton, who also worked for Yahoo! After nine years of working for the company, the two spent a year traveling around South America together. They applied to work at Facebook together, and they were both rejected.
Ultimately, Jan Koum's financial journey is a testament to their success.
Disclaimer: All net worth figures are estimates based on public data.
