WhatsApp is currently the most popular messaging service in the world with billions of users. But if there was no role for Ukraine, perhaps there would be no WhatsApp either.
That's because the co-founder of WhatsApp, Jan Koum, is Ukrainian born. Even though Koum gave birth to WhatsApp in the United States, he still grew up in Ukraine until his teenage years and reportedly so far, holds Ukrainian citizenship alongside the US.
Koum who had resigned from WhatsApp a few years ago, was born on February 24, 1976 near Kyiv. At that time, Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union under the name Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
Jan Koum's father is a construction manager and his mother is not working. At that time, Ukraine was hit by political turmoil. Life is not easy for the Koum family, especially those of Jewish descent. At that time, Ukraine was not a rich country.
"My school doesn't have an en suite bathroom. Imagine a scorching winter in Ukraine, the weather is minus 20 degrees Celsius, the kids have to queue outside to use the bathroom," Koum recalls, as quoted by Forbes.
In 1990 when Jan Koum was 16 years old, he and his mother immigrated to Mountain View, United States. This step is considered the safest because of the growing political turmoil and anti-Jewish movement in Ukraine.
His father planned to follow, but never got around to it. He died in 1997. In America, the condition of Koum and his mother did not immediately improve. They are still lacking. Her mother works as a babysitter and Koum sometimes sweeps the shop to make a living.
They live on subsidized food and live in apartments that are also financed by the US government. The ordeal came again after Koum's mother was diagnosed with cancer and died in 2000.
But Jan Koum is a smart boy. At the age of 18, he took the initiative to self-taught computer networking. He also joined the hacker club nicknamed w00w00.
Long story short, Koum met Brian Acton when they both worked at Yahoo. They also founded WhatsApp in 2009 and reaped great success until they got abundant wealth. You could say, Jan Koum is the most successful immigrant from Ukraine so far.