9781422277331

Tech 2.0

expensive. Even when willing to deal with the idea that their con- versations might be recorded, Koum and his mother still could not call relatives back home very often because it cost too much. Although he couldn’t have known it at the time, Koum’s own per- sonal realities were starting to create the basic framework for WhatsApp in his head. Koum still had a long way to go before he was in a position to buildWhatsApp. When he and his mother arrived in the United States, they required food stamps just to get by. Koum worked as a janitor, while his mother was a babysitter. Eventually, he was

Jan Koum moved to the US before founding WhatsApp.

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