From Welfare to WhatsApp
Jan ( co-founder whatsapp) , who turns 38 this year, was just a teenager when he emigrated to the U.S. from a small village outside Kiev, Ukraine. Life in rural Kiev, a city that is currently rife with political tension and mass protests, was not easy. Jan's home had no hot water, and his parents refused to use the phone, which was tapped by the government. Once in the U.S., he taught himself computer networking by reading manuals bought from a used bookstore.
In 1997, he met his future WhatsApp cofounder, Brian, who convinced Jan to join Yahoo! even though he was still in college. Jan became an infrastructure engineer at Yahoo! and dropped out of San Jose State University. The two still describe themselves as "two guys who spent combined 20 years doing geeky stuff at Yahoo! Inc. before starting WhatsApp Inc." on the company's About page.
The Forbes piece includes a photo of Jan signing the billion-dollar Facebook deal on the doors of his old welfare office in Mountain View, Calif.—a perfect full-circle summation of his rags-to-riches journey.
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