Did you know that WhatsApp’s Jewish co-founder, Jan Koum, came to the US after his family fled antisemitism in the former Soviet Union? Koum was just a teenager when he moved to California with his mother. They arrived with very little and lived in poverty as they built a new life in America. During that time, he taught himself computer programming. Years later, Koum co-founded WhatsApp, which grew into one of the world’s largest mobile messaging platforms, connecting more than 2 billion people worldwide. Facebook acquired the company in 2014. Today, he has an estimated net worth of more than $16 billion.
