I grew up in Ukraine where the phone line was tapped by the KGB. Privacy is not a feature for me. It is a fundamental right.

We had 55 employees when Facebook bought us for 19 billion dollars. That is 345 million per employee. Keep your teams small.

I applied to work at Facebook. They said no. I applied to Twitter. They said no. Best rejections of my life.

No ads. No games. No gimmicks. WhatsApp was built on one principle: respect the user. Everything else followed.

I pinned my Facebook rejection letter to the door of WhatsApp the day we signed the acquisition deal.

We came to America with nothing. We lived on food stamps. This country gave me everything. The least I could do was build something useful.