Nothing but a very comfortable safety net. I mean come on, his parents were part of the group of people who fled South Africa after the end of Apartheid... not exactly rags to riches.
He's done a lot, but "started with nothing" is seriously disingenuous. Additionally: you don't have to "start from nothing" for your achievements to be worthy.
He started out with a lot of money from his family's South African mining operations.
Your mockery is ill-directed, and in the context of a post about someone whose corporate wealth was able to be donated to charity, in really poor taste.
I was attacking the flipant attitude towards $400,000 by the OP. When I refer to being ignorant of socio-economic issues I wasn't talking about Koum, I've never seen him make any statement like that for me to judge his attitude by and I thought the context of my comment was clear in that.
But, in terms of Koum, he comes from an immigrant family that was lucky enough to have the ability to move to the US, this alone hints to me while they might have been poor by our standards they must have been doing well enough to make such a big move and afford it, people who do that are usually more well off then the general population they are immigrating from. Clearly he suffered some hardship when he was young and moved through it, that's commendable. But at 18 he got what seems like a pretty good gig at Ernst & Young and post that a good job at Yahoo, enough of a good job to save up almost half million dollars over 9 years, enough to basically take a year off from working and get to travel around a bit ... not too shabby. I'm sure plenty of people wish they had the ability to do this, but probably never will.
I'm not trying to detract from what he earned, and he certainly had a humble background and hardships while young with his mother being sick, but the idea he went from rags to riches really rubs me the wrong way. There are people who live in rags and I have a feeling most of them haven't had the opportunities Koum had. Whether the man himself is humble about it I don't know, I can't say because I never met him and I don't know his views, but I do know that the media portrayal of his background seems over the top. Let's give up this false narrative, humble beginnings isn't the same as being dirt poor and he certainly was quite rich when he started WhatsApp.
He has actually made something rather rent seeking so there is no reason to think this is zero-sum-gain.
Beyond that, his lifetime income, even assuming zero business expenses and a hyper optimistic business lifetime, is not remotely enough to guide a government. It's no even enough to buy a decent apartment building.
This income level is closer to the $1000 a month person than the Koch brothers by several decimal places. And the difference between how he got what he has vs theirs is like the difference between a faucet and a drain.
He has enough money to not have to care about money. He just didn't get to kill as many Africans as he and his father would have liked to. Give the poor guy a break. It's been a tough year for him.
Not only has he found himself $1M, but he also comes from an environment where asking money from friends and family for your own interests is totally acceptable.
2 generations ago, people in my family were farmers who had to count the potatoes for dinner. They worked hard to give their kids a better standard of life than they could have ever dreamt of (my grandmother started working when she was 13, and she and my grandfather did all they could to send my mom to college).
There is no way I would be okay asking my parents for their hard earned money to fund a venture that could absolutely fail, let alone some silly "social network platform" startup.
I wish I had a good way to end this comment (life is unfair? or maybe it's useless to be upset at this sort of thing, what matters is living a happy honest life?) but I don't.
It's a question of focus. He is desperately poor: he's completely broke. He has talents that he needs to focus on making money. My assumption was that he still wants to be an entrepreneur: he needs to learn how to bootstrap on minimal cashflow.
He's got 2.5B. So, want something to do, something that is worthwhile?
Go setup a charity. One which is your passion. Go setup schools at cheap locations, with good enough equipment and teach coding and IT to the poor/disadvantaged.
Don't just sit there and cry about having nothing the other side of it.
I assume his "basic level of support" was at least at, if not higher than, the USA-defined "poverty line" ... which is above 87% of world incomes (PPP adjusted). He wants others to, under implied or actual threat of gunpoint, be compelled to provide for what he considers basic needs (and much of the world considers luxury) with no consideration of impact on their lives. This because he chose a life of debt and rent, most likely in an area most others could not afford to live in. Am I wrong?
"My target is to cover my family’s expenses before I run out of savings"
On the one hand I applaud people chasing their dreams, taking risks to start something new etc, but on the other hand, it seems like he's putting a lot of risk on the family and even seems a bit selfish to me.
Wouldn't he be better off starting a fulfilling hobby, or trying to negotiate a 3 or 4-day work-week and starting a side business, etc?
His lifestyle is nothing extravagant. When I said that he's unable to support his lifestyle, I suppose I should have said that he's soon going to be unable to support living at all, without being on welfare, if he doesn't change professions.
He's done a lot, but "started with nothing" is seriously disingenuous. Additionally: you don't have to "start from nothing" for your achievements to be worthy.
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