SAN FRANCISCO: A few days after selling WhatsApp to Facebook for US$19bil (RM62.21bil), Jan Koum stepped into a suite at the St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco to celebrate with old friends, including CEOs, reformed hackers and a few people who fell into both those camps.
Conducted over snacks and beer, the late-night festivity was a spontaneous reunion of a security super-group that had come to Koum's aid in 2000 as he grappled with a denial-of-service attack that knocked Yahoo! offline when Koum was responsible for security there.