Episode 90: The Jan Koum Collection: Gooding Auction Preview

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**SPEAKER_3** (0:39)
Now podcast one brings you Spike's Car Radio.
A downloadable Cars and Coffee, hosted by writer, comedian and automotive enthusiast, Spike Feresten. Now here's Spike.

**Spike Feresten** (0:52)
Hey everybody, welcome to Spike's Car Radio. We got a big Porsche show for you. I'm very excited about today's show.
I'm sure you guys know about the Amelia Island Concord. I'm sure you remember when Jerry Seinfeld sold, I think it was 16 of his cars at Gooding and Company's Amelia Island Concord in Florida a couple years ago. Well, there's another big auction like that of some incredible cars.
And they're being sold by Jan Koum. Don't know that name? Well, first and foremost, he's the first billionaire we've had here on Spike's Car Radio. And he used a lot of that money that he made with his WhatsApp. He created WhatsApp. You know that little messaging app you use to talk privately to people and maybe your side piece? We're today going to go through, you have 10 cars up, Jan?

**Jan Koum** (1:42)
Yeah, there will be 10 cars for sale.

**Spike Feresten** (1:43)
10 cars, we're just gonna go through the cars and talk about Porsches with you. Well, Jan, thanks for coming here.

**Jan Koum** (1:49)
Yeah, thanks for having me.

**Spike Feresten** (1:50)
I've heard, and Zuckerman, I know you've heard too, through the Porsche community, that you were a very big collector. How long, I really wanna ask him about the billion dollars. What's it like being a billionaire first?
Which came first, the Porsche love or the billion dollars?

**Jan Koum** (2:07)
I had a 924 when I was still in high school.

**Spike Feresten** (2:10)
You did?

**Jan Koum** (2:10)
I had this green car with about 100,000 miles on it that was falling apart. It was 1976 model year, which is like the first year they were made.
And that's when it all started. And despite the pains of owning that car, the love was there. I had a 996 in the early 2000s.

**Spike Feresten** (2:27)
And where did I detect a New Jersey accent? Where did you grow up?

**Jan Koum** (2:33)
I was born in Ukraine.

**Spike Feresten** (2:34)
In Ukraine.

**Jan Koum** (2:35)
But I've been in California for 25 years.

**SPEAKER_6** (2:36)
It looks like he could strangle people. But I like, you see, he was there.

**Spike Feresten** (2:40)
Where did you have the 924? Did you have it in Ukraine?

**Jan Koum** (2:43)
No, no, here, here in high school.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:44)
He had it here, he did?

**Jan Koum** (2:45)
Actually, I think I was in college by that point.

**Spike Feresten** (2:47)
He's a very interesting amalgam of a human, Zuckerman, because he kind of looks a little like you, but he sounds like Moïse, our friend Moïse.

**SPEAKER_6** (2:53)
A little, no, he, he, okay.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:56)
This is what I respect.

**Spike Feresten** (2:57)
Another high net worth individual.

**SPEAKER_6** (2:59)
But what I can sense here is this guy was born hungry.
Yes. And that's something you're either born with or you're not.

**Spike Feresten** (3:05)
Well, the story, if you've ever read this story, we won't go too deep into it, it's pretty remarkable of WhatsApp and how it was created and where it went on to go, right? You guys suffered for a while with that thing. You put it together with a good friend of yours, right?

**Jan Koum** (3:16)
Yeah, we knew each other from working at Yahoo back from 98 until 2007, so we became really good friends and then we both left Yahoo and we started WhatsApp.

**Spike Feresten** (3:27)
Can I just ask you one simple question about this? What led you to believe that people needed encrypted messaging? Like when here I am, just thinking my Yahoo email is encrypted, I'm fine, right?
No, you're shaking your head, right?

**Jan Koum** (3:44)
Gmail, for everybody listening, Gmail was two-factor authentication.