Quotes from Jan Koum

People appreciate a good product, a stable system. They want to communicate easily and use a product that just works.

When I was a kid trying to communicate with family in the Soviet Union, it was very difficult. You had to go through the long-distance phone companies like MCI, which were difficult to navigate and expensive to make calls through.

There were a lot of negatives, of course, but there were positives to living a life unfettered by possessions. It gave us the chance to focus on education, which was very important in the Soviet Union.

We hear lots of stories where grandparents go to a store and buy a smartphone so they can keep in touch with kids and grandkids.

When advertising is involved, you, the user, are the product.

We're not interested in bombarding our users with, 'Hey, play this game, play this game, play this game.' It gets annoying, it gets in the way of messaging, and it gets in the way of staying in touch with people who are important to you.

We don't really talk about our future plans. But we, at the same time, try to build things that our users ask us for.

We obviously try to be in tune with what our users want.

We continue to grow, and, just like with countries like China or other countries where we are not doing particularly well, we take a really long-term approach.

I grew up in a country where advertising doesn't exist.

The argument can be made: Maybe you want to trust the government, but you shouldn't because you don't know where things are going to go in the future.

The message growth rate in Brazil - it's not like a hockey stick: it's like a vertical line.

Communication is at the very core of our society. That's what makes us human.

I didnt have a computer until I was 19 - but I did have an abacus.