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- Jan Koum, cofounder of WhatsApp, has spent almost $80 million purchasing and completely rebuilding a sprawling compound in Atherton, California, according to Variety.
- In 2014, Koum sold WhatsApp to Facebook for $19 billion and joined the company’s Board of Directors.
- Atherton, California was ranked America’s richest community for the third year in a row by Bloomberg.
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In America’s richest town, it’s go big or go home.
According to a report by Variety, Jan Koum, the billionaire cofounder of WhatsApp, has spent almost $80 million buying and constructing what just may be the most expensive property in America’s richest zip code — Atherton, California. The average income in Atherton, according to Bloomberg, is $450,696.
Koum reportedly configured the compound by dropping $57 million over the course of four years to acquire and completely renovate five houses in Atherton. The report also states he spent over $20 million adding two new mansions and a two-level detached garage that spans over 10,000 square feet to the site.
Read more: Inside the most expensive town in America
Koum sold WhatsApp to Facebook for $19 billion in 2014 and joined the company’s Board of Directors. After the deal, he sold over $7.1 billion worth of Facebook shares and was living the good life in Silicon Valley "resting and vesting" — a term used to describe engineers who have small workloads and high-priced stocks.
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In 2018, Koum announced his departure from Facebook, stating in a blog post that he wanted to spend time growing his Porsche collection and playing ultimate frisbee.
Located around 45 minutes south of San Francisco and 20 minutes from the headquarters of Facebook, Google, and Tesla, Atherton has attracted Silicon Valley billionaires including former HP CEO Meg Whitman and Google chairman Eric Schmidt.
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As for Koum himself, Variety reports that he also owns an $8.8 million home in Atherton, which sits about a mile from the compound and was purchased in 2015.
News of Koum’s sprawling compound joins other notable tech moguls’ recent real-estate purchases, including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ $80 million NYC penthouse and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s $22 million Lake Tahoe estate.
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Source: Business Insider – feedback@businessinsider.com (Libertina Brandt)