Facebook's $19 billion WhatsApp deal was signed at Koum's old welfare office.
On 19 February 2014, Forbes reported, Jan Koum, cofounder Brian Acton and their Sequoia investor drove from WhatsApp's Mountain View office to the former North County Social Services building. Koum had come from Ukraine at 16 and once stood in line there for food stamps, he told Forbes.
After leaving Yahoo in 2007, Koum and Acton had both applied to work at Facebook and failed. In March 2009, a month after incorporating WhatsApp, Koum told Acton he should probably fold it and look for a job. Acton told him: "You'd be an idiot to quit now."
On 19 February 2014, Facebook agreed to pay about $16 billion in cash and shares, plus $3 billion in restricted stock units vesting over four years; at closing it awarded the units to WhatsApp employees. So about a sixth of the headline $19 billion was stock for staff. Facebook said WhatsApp had more than 450 million monthly users and that Koum would join its board. Forbes posted that he signed the deal on the welfare office door.
One-minute true story. AI-generated illustration with narration by an AI voice.
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What the captions say
- Facebook's $19 billion WhatsApp deal was signed at Koum's old welfare office, Forbes reported.
- In 2009, the month after he incorporated WhatsApp, Koum told his old Yahoo colleague Brian Acton he should probably quit.
- Both men knew rejection. Both had applied to work at Facebook after leaving Yahoo, and both failed.
- Koum had come from Ukraine at 16, he told Forbes, and once stood in line for food stamps.
- When Koum said he should probably fold WhatsApp, Acton told him: "You'd be an idiot to quit now."
- In February 2014, Facebook agreed to buy WhatsApp for about $16 billion.
- The deal added $3 billion more in restricted stock units.
- That day, Forbes reported, Koum signed on the door of his old welfare office.
- And Facebook, the company that had rejected him for a job, said Koum would join its board of directors.
