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Twitpic: Go to Twitpic.com, create an account, upload photos and easily share them on Twitter. Yfrog: Yfrog is another popular photo-sharing service. YouTube videos: Simply paste a YouTube video URL into a tweet. Your followers will be able to view the video right in their Twitter stream by clicking on the “View Media” link that appears in your tweet. AudioBoo: Use AudioBoo to share audio files. Once you have an account, sharing an AudioBoo link is super intuitive. Twitter is a very passive media, but great to build awareness and start conversations. I recommend bridging to more assertive media like email, Chatter, LinkedIn, phone conversations, and live meetings. Live meetings are the most assertive, and work great at common events like Trade Shows, etc. Use Twitter to bridge to more assertive media as soon as you can. 27. Retweet great content. When you see something worth sharing in your stream, retweet it. This means that you are sharing somebody else’s Twitter content with your own followers. My tweeting guru friend @GabeVillamizar shares some great tips on retweeting. Retweeting somebody else’s content accomplishes two things: 1. It helps you make friends with other influencers on Twitter. 2. It shows your followers that you’re an active member of your online community. Retweeting is simple. Here’s how: Click the Retweet button on any tweet. This will publish the original tweet in your followers’ streams. The tweet will appear exactly as it did when it was first tweeted, meaning it will appear to come from the person who originally tweeted it. A message will appear at the bottom of the tweet telling people that you retweeted it. Retweet the old-fashioned way. When viewing a tweet, click Reply. Copy and paste the original message into your tweet box. Place the letters RT in front of the original tweeter’s Twitter handle, or @ sign. Click Tweet. The post will be published in your followers’ streams as if it came from you. Many users prefer this method of retweeting because it’s better for building your own brand. 28. Send direct tweets as a great form of communication. Direct tweets are one-to- one messages as opposed to one-to-many. So, these tweets are more personal by nature. Use direct tweets to build strong relationships and to communicate important messages. There are two types of direct tweets: 7/9

At-replies: Send an at-reply to another Twitter user by hitting the Reply button on any tweet. Type your message into the box that pops up and click Tweet. Your at-reply will show up in this person’s Interactions stream, which means it is more likely to be seen than a regular tweet. Just remember, your at-reply will also be visible to the public as part of your general Twitter stream. Direct messages: If you don’t want anybody but the intended recipient to see your tweet, use a direct message. Click on the gray gear icon at the top of your Twitter profile. Select Direct Messages and create a new message. Once you submit it, it will appear in the recipient’s inbox. 29. Use great #hashtags. Hashtags categorize your tweets, which makes it easier for others interested in your topic to find them. Turn the keywords you want to be known for into your hashtags. Create a hashtag by placing the # symbol in front of your keywords. For example, #insidesales, #sales and #salesdata are popular hashtags in the sales space. Remember the rule though: divert a river, don't dig a well. Find existing hashtags with lots of traffic by searching for them using the Search Bar at the top of your profile. View a list of related tweets by clicking on a hashtag inside a tweet. Make a hashtag for every event and presentation you do. #salessummit was our hashtag for our big Virtual Sales Summit. It already had lots of existing traffic (divert a river.) Put your hashtag right at the bottom of every slide in your PowerPoint to make it easy for people to see it and tweet while you are presenting. Share your Twitter content with your audience on other networks by re-posting your tweets on Facebook and LinkedIn, when appropriate. You also can embed a tweet into your blog or website. Click on the date in the upper-right-hand corner of a tweet. Then click More and select Embed Tweet. Copy the code and add it to your blog or website. SEE IF IT’S WORKING 31. Check where you stand on social media tools, like Klout.com, Peerindex.com, Kred.com, Wefollow.com. Your influence on social media matters. The higher your score is, the more influential and relevant you are to others in the social media realm. One of the most popular tools is Klout. Quickly set up an account on Klout to see your score from 1 to 100. Use these Twitter tips to help you build your business. NOTE: I've been asked a lot to receive more details on how to do these 31 Twitter tips. If you practice by following me @KenKrogue and sending me a Tweet, I'll respond and copy you with a link with a more complete version of this article to help you do each of the 31 tips. Good luck! - Ken 8/9

Ken Krogue I focus on using the Internet, Inside Sales, Lead Generation, Gamification, and Social Media to grow businesses. I'm also an American who cares enough to speak up and a… Reprints & Permissions 9/9

An Inside Look At This CEO’s Refreshing Way Of Doing Business In The Beverage Industry forbes.com/sites/pauleannareid/2020/10/21/an-inside-look-at-this-ceos-refreshing-way-of-doing-business-in-the- beverage-industry October 21, 2020 Lisa Reed, Founder, Garden of Flavor Photography Credit: Garden of Flavor What would you do to help heal the world? For Certified Holistic Educator, Raw Food Chef, Plant Based Nutritionist, and Founder of organic juice brand Garden of Flavor Lisa Reed, it’s all about the juice. “So much of what we eat - whether it’s milk, dairy, cheese - it all makes for a more acidic environment in your body, so we need the greens and the cucumbers, the kale and the spinach to bring us to an alkaline state. It's kind of hard to do without drinking green juice,'' shared Reed in our recent interview as we discussed Garden of Flavor’s origins and rise to success. Fresh Beginnings From Rotten Circumstances Before launching Garden of Flavor in 2011, Reed spent years in a corporate environment looking for a meaningful change to take place in her life. Unfortunately, that change came when her mother developed a form of cancer that western medicine could no longer treat. “I began taking trips with her to different natural, holistic medicine clinics,” started Reed. From 1/4

Mexico to West Palm Beach, Florida and even Germany, Reed stated that the main treatment all the programs had in common was juicing of raw, organic vegetables. “That is kind of what planted the seeds in my head.” Growing up with a passion for gardening and cooking, Reed always had an interest in healthy eating. “My mom and dad would go to work, I would come home from school, and I made dinner for everyone because that’s what I loved to do,” recalled Reed of her early years of feeding her family. As she matured and began experimenting with different juice recipes at home, Reed educated herself on the true art of juicing. “A lot of my knowledge about juicing, I learned from Dr. Norman Walker,” Reed said of the late nutritional health pioneer. “I got all his books and I researched all about combining the right ingredients. And then, any vacation time I had, I would spend it at [places] like Living Light Raw Food Institute in California and taking the courses in plant based nutrition at Cornell.” This education, Reed stated, is exactly the gradual progression that led her to decide that it was finally time to take what she loved and turn it into her career. After filling the cups of her close friends and family, Reed took to local farmer’s markets. Sharing her concoctions with whomever she thought had natural health and wellness in mind, Reed made sure she kept track of her customers’ testimonies. “I really learned a lot from my customers because they would say, ‘this made me feel this way,’ or ‘I’ve been drinking the green juice every day and it's helped give me energy,’ or ‘I sleep better at night,’ or ‘I don't have sugar cravings.’ And so that's how I got really comfortable opening my first juice bar.” Moving Into Greater Territory Utilizing her own equity, Reed kept creative control as she organically grew her business out of her home kitchen and into a facility in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, taking the plunge to rent out a storefront in a small wellness institute in 2012. “In each stage, all of a sudden, the writing becomes really clear on the wall,” she spoke of her decision to scale. “The days are getting too long and too hard to keep up the volume. There’s gotta be a better way.” Around the same time, Reed had been delivering fresh juice every day to her local Whole Foods and routinely doing tasting demos for customers. Taking notice of what else they had in their shopping carts, Reed began asking them what it was that they particularly liked about her competing products. “I had a lot of customers buying different [types of] kombucha that were there,” Reed mentioned of the fermented drink that has gained much popularity over the last decade. “I started asking them, ‘What do you like about the kombucha? Why are you buying it?’ And there was an underlying agreement with all the customers that they liked having the gut health of probiotic cultures. And so I thought, ‘I wonder if I could use probiotic cultures in my juices?’” she recollected. 2/4

Shortly after, Reed tried the cultures and garnered international attention for the idea. So much so that she and Garden of Flavor won the “Best Juice or Juice Drink Category” at the World Beverage Innovation Awards in 2014. Traveling to Nuremberg, Germany to accept, Reed realized what she had on her hands. “That's what really gave me the confidence that I needed to move to a manufacturing facility and really give people the product that I was making,” she said. Utilizing all of her own equity, Reed kept creative control as she organically grew her business. “I make juice the way juice should be made - with the highest quality of ingredients - and that’s the way that I want to keep it,” she explained of early and present funding. “I would never want to compromise my quality in order to make an investor happy.” And once Garden of Flavor began showing up on grocery store shelves, Reed recognized that a much larger facility was needed to keep up the pace. But moving into their current facility in Cleveland, Ohio was a learning process. “We had to have a wash line in order to tumble and wash all the vegetables. We have a large produce elevator that feeds the leafy greens into a shredder. Then you have to have strainers. Then you have to have… tanks where our recipes are mixed - antique stainless steel, dairy tanks. We started with a 4-head, in-line filler, then moved to an 8-head, then a 12-head, now we have a 16-head. You have to apply the correct labels to the bottles so you need a label line. And then for us, refrigeration is critical, so we have to then have refrigerated storage for all the finished bottles before they get on a refrigerated van or truck to be taken to the grocery stores. That’s a whole new world that, going into this, I knew nothing about,” Reed exclaimed. However, she expressed that these were all necessary considerations when it came to Garden of Flavor’s overall growth. Bringing A Fresher Perspective To The Market To be sure that the brand could continue to compete in larger markets, Reed made the decision to later hire a branding agency to help with marketing. “I knew from the beginning how precious that space is in the refrigerated section of stores such as Whole Foods,” she explained. “Even though you're small and you may be local, you're still competing for that refrigerated space against the national brands because the buyers are still going to look at the rates of sales and their margins in order to justify the space they're allotting you. So we needed to look the part and make a quality product. And we needed to do it better than the national brands.” Also choosing to hire her son Clay - who’s been drinking green juice out of his baby bottle since Reed first began juicing - as head of production to uphold her personal standards, Reed has been able to take her company’s success one day at a time. “I kind of got in the habit of, everyday reflecting, like when I'm driving home on the day and gauging whether that was a successful day. And then at the end of the week and then the end of the month. And what I look for is, ‘did we make a really good product? Were there any issues? Is my staff happy? Are 3/4

all my people feeling really good about what we did?’” Reed related that if she can answer yes to questions like those then she knows she will have happy customers and a profitable business. Today, Garden of Flavor’s Juices and Energy Elixirs can be found nationwide in popular retail stores such as Whole Foods and Wegmans, as well as on the brand’s website. And although Reed has outgrown her humble beginnings, she still makes ample time to take care. “You need to clear your head,” she urged. “Even if it’s late at night or super early in the morning, it's taking that time that you need for yourself to clear your head and let everything go away and put things in perspective.” From the mini juice cleanses she gets from daily tastings at her production facility to practicing yoga and meditation, Reed’s way of life is a refreshing example of conducting business. Pauleanna Reid I am the founder of New Girl on the Block, a mentorship platform for millennial women who are dealing with major life and career transitions. I use creative education to … Reprints & Permissions 4/4

Best Stories Of The Decade: “Guns, Girls And Sex Tapes: The Unhinged, Hedonistic Saga Of Billionaire Stewart Rahr, ‘Number One King Of All Fun’” forbes.com/sites/forbesdigitalcovers/2019/12/23/guns-girls-and-sex-tapes-the-unhinged-hedonistic-saga-of-billionaire- stewart-rahr-number-one-king-of-all-fun December 23, 2019 Jonathan Kozowyk Editors' Pick|Dec 23, 2019,06:00am EST|15,923 views Steven BertoniForbes Staff Forbes Digital Covers Contributor Group Business Forbes VP & Senior Editor: Forbes CEO Network, Tech, Investing As this decade ends, we’re republishing our best work from the past 10 years, a journey that reflects Forbes’ two-fold mission: chronicle entrepreneurial capitalism—shining a light on the disruptors changing the world forever—and call out the rogues abusing the system. It’s not the most urgent story we ran this decade. But this profile of Stewart “Stewie Rah Rah” Rahr is surely our most entertaining and one of the most telling, a cautionary tale of what happens when someone comes into unlimited money, with little moral compass to go with it. It’s a party that turns into a train wreck—complete with guns, sex tapes and a cameo from Donald Trump. 1/11

— Randall Lane, Chief Content Officer By Steven Bertoni and Caleb Melby | Originally published Sept. 17, 2013 At 9:15 on a Wednesday night Stewart Rahr struts into Catch, a thumping restaurant in New York's Meatpacking District, with a lithe Taiwanese party promoter on one arm, an aspiring Brazilian actress on the other and his bodyguard, Big Tommy, trailing behind. Rahr wears his thinning hair greased back from his tangerine-tan forehead, a wide-open black button-down hanging untucked over his tight jeans. His custom, highlighter-yellow Swatch (with his face on the watch face) matches his \"I Love Ibiza\" phone case, both consistent with his bright trademark sunglasses. He's promptly seated—for about 30 seconds. Soon Rahr, who is 67 years old and refers to himself in the third person as \"Rah Rah,\" begins pinballing among tables, a 50-cent Black & Mild cigar wedged in his mouth, pointing finger pistols at rapper/producer Doug E. Fresh and R&B singer Maxwell as he shakes his hips and grunts \"Hey-hey-hey!\" It's his latest tagline, one borrowed from Robin Thicke's \"Blurred Lines,\" this summer's ubiquitous hit song made infamous for its music video featuring three aging pop stars surrounded by naked nymphets. Rah Rah's own nymphets sulk at his table, thumbing iPhones, as he bounces over to the eight models seated nearby and informs them that he's single. Hey-hey-hey . Introduced to another young woman, he breaks the ice thusly: \"Where do you work? Over the desk? Under the desk? Everyone has a position.\" Since selling his New York-based drug distribution company, Kinray, to Cardinal Health CAH +0% for $1.3 billion in 2010, the Big Apple has been seeing a lot less of Stewart Rahr. Rah Rah, however, has been pretty unavoidable. Everyone has a friend who seems tons 2/11

of fun to hang out with for a night but proves so exhausting you would rather not see him for a few months. Stewart Rahr is that guy. Times a billion. Rahr keeps an ever-growing list of celebrities, journalists, politicians and fellow billionaires up to speed on his adventures through massive e-mail blasts, often signed \"Stewie Rah Rah Number One King of All Fun.\" Mark Cuban tells FORBES these e-mails are probably the best he's ever seen. The notes almost always come with attachments. See photos of Rahr mugging with Michael Milken, Leonardo DiCaprio, Paris Hilton. See a clip of his private concert by opera star Andrea Bocelli. See him accept an award for his $10 million gift to the Make-A- Wish Foundation. Check out these gorgeous young women in bikinis, cocktail dresses and sometimes nothing at all. In late July Rahr sent an e-mail with the subject line \"So r u going w me to Capri, Italy, n Ibiza,\" which contained a picture of two naked women with the words \"Love life, have fun, Rah Rah,\" along with an abstract likeness of Rahr painted across their bare bottoms. The 400 or so people on Rahr's blind-copied e-mail list (he conspicuously cc's the names, and e-mails, of the more famous, from Jay Leno to Oprah Winfrey, rotating the visible celebrities as a farmer does fields) have become used to such antics. Those not on Rahr's e-mail list also get to live voyeuristically. He's become a staple for the gossip pages, particularly the New York Post's Page Six. In November he was banned from the midtown outlet of Robert De Niro's celebrity sushi joint, Nobu. Ten days later he was taken into custody for allegedly pulling a gun on an elevator operator. And most notoriously, this June it was revealed that he had been sending friends copies of a sex tape involving three women that he filmed in the back of a limousine. \"It was in France; I was single,\" shrugs Rahr. \"I turned around, and the girls were, 'hey-hey- hey, ho-ho-ho,' it's a party.\" All this action dovetails, coincidentally or not, with a $250 million divorce settlement made in May with his wife of 43 years, Carol. Rahr says there's no connection to the uptick in his antics and that he and his ex still have lunch once a week. \"My divorce with Carol was phenomenal,\" says Rahr. \"I love that girl.\" Love is the key word in Rah Rah's vernacular. He intermittently uses \"love life\" and \"love & have fun fun!\" as mottos on almost every communication he sends. He expresses love of friends and family. A love of people, as evidenced by the philanthropic honors he's keen to share. That's what makes the story of Stewart Rahr more than just a tale of Caligulan excess, an ongoing episode of HBO's Entourage (which Rahr scored a walk-on role in, naturally, courtesy of cocreator Mark Wahlberg), except with a lot more years and zeroes. Rahr showers people with what he considers love. The question remains whether he is getting any return on that investment. 3/11

PAST THE HALLWAY with Picasso, Miro and Koons on the high floor of the Trump Park Avenue apartment building, you'll find a sparse, cream-colored room with knockout Manhattan-skyline views that Rahr implies gets a lot of visitors. He calls it the \"panty dropper.\" You can learn a lot about someone by looking around his bedroom. Above his king bed's leather headboard Rahr shows off his most recent art acquisition, a painting depicting a reclined nude woman, those signature yellow sunglasses in hand, \"Rah Rah Forever Young!\" scrawled across her yellow skin, Basquiat-style. His two nightstands, meanwhile, display Rahr's evolution. The one on the left is all Rah Rah, chock-full of framed photos showing him with various members of the A-list (Scarlett Johansson, DiCaprio, Bill Clinton), the drawers below stuffed with copies of Page Six. While he doesn't call the right nightstand Rosebud, he may as well: It's filled with old photos of his parents as well as the grin-and-grab photo that started it all—a young Rahr, perhaps 6 or 7, on vacation at Disneyland, holding hands, at his father's insistence, with Walt Disney himself. Stewart Rahr grew up in Far Rockaway, Queens, the second of two sons. Rahr says his father, Joseph, was rarely home, a workaholic, managing both a small family pharmacy and intermittently trying to get into the distribution game. Rahr describes his mother, Gertrude, as a dominating homemaker who kept quieter Pops \"under her thumb.\" Stewart Rahr with celebrities, including Leonardo DiCaprio. Jonathan-Kozowyk As a kid, Rahr says, he was stricken with polio. He remembers the pervasive loneliness of lying on the floor of his family's living room, trapped in leg braces, while listening to his friends play stickball on the street. By high school, though, Rahr had toughened up. He was a baseball player and top scorer for the varsity basketball team—a fact he proves by producing the official scorekeeper's book. His yearbook has him listed as \"King Rahr\" and \"Most likely to bully teachers.\" After NYU as an undergrad, he attended law school, which he hated. When his father announced plans to sell Kinray in 1969, Rahr dropped out and persuaded his father to let him run the company. \"I wasn't born into the lucky sperm bank like a lot of these other people 4/11

are,\" Rahr says, glossing over the fact that he inherited an established, albeit small, company. \"You know, I couldn't buy my way—I had to work my way.\" He pauses. “What a great quote: ‘I couldn’t buy my way into success, I had to work my way into success.’” Around this same time he began courting Carol. A friend had shown Rahr a photo of her, and the inner-salesman took over. Without prior introduction he phoned her just after Rosh Hashanah and said \"Happy New Year, this is gonna be the best year of your life.\" They went out for coffee, and Carol remembers two things distinctly: Rahr talking at length about his ambitions for Kinray, and his driving, which teetered between aggressive and reckless. \"I said, 'If your business doesn't work out, you could always drive a cab.'\" Pharmacy distribution is a brutal business, especially for smaller players. Giant companies like McKesson and Cardinal Health are happy with cash flow margins under 3%. To stand out Rahr spurned the big drugstore chains to focus on single mom-and-pop shops, casting Kinray as the \"underdog\" distributor. Rahr hustled hard to develop deep relationships with small- business owners in metro New York and New Jersey, often lending them money to expand or get through hard times. \"Listen, I don't sell to your competitor over here—Duane Reade or CVS. But I see you're dealing with McKesson,\" he'd tell the smaller pharmacy owners. \"They're selling to them and supporting them, and they're supporting the mail-order houses.\" The guilt trip usually paid off. As Rahr expanded he sought every cost advantage. An automated order-packing system, installed in 1993 after Rahr randomly met the system's inventor on an airplane, shortened turnaround times and helped sales jump 40% to around $200 million the following year. Rahr put the money back into Kinray and moved from a 25,000-square-foot headquarters into a 400,000-square-foot warehouse in Queens, near the Whitestone Bridge. The new digs could handle a massive amount of volume, and soon the champion of the little guy was out- muscling smaller distributors. Rahr worked diligently. \"Let's say they'd predict 2 feet [of snow],\" Carol remembers. \"They'd sleep in the warehouse so they could be open the next day. I don't think there was a day they were closed, like ever.\" Kinray, at it roots, was a family company. Rahr's older brother Elliot made a go of it with him in the early days, but it worked out poorly. Elliot left, and Rahr wound up owning Kinray outright. In 1998 Rahr brought a third generation into Kinray, tapping son Robert (Rahr also has a daughter, Felicia) as executive vice president and general counsel. That apparently flopped, too—by 2005 he was gone. \"It was a wonderful company with wonderful people, and I enjoyed my experience there immensely,\" Robert says in a telephone interview, each word uttered deliberately, as if he was reading from a statement. \"And I have the utmost respect for my colleagues and team 5/11

members.\" Even his dad? \"I'd prefer not to answer that question,\" he says. (He called back later, unprompted, to revise his answer: \"It includes everybody, including my father.\") As success accelerated, Rah Rah began to emerge. In the 1990s Rahr would play the role of Gatbsy in his co-op on York Avenue, throwing parties with gaggles of women frolicking in the building's stainless-steel pool. During this time Rahr, along with the rest of the industry, made a bundle speculating on drug prices, stockpiling pharmaceuticals he believed would go up in price. After the practice was banned in 2004, Rahr focused on the high-margin generics business, private-label health care products and client services, from pricing consulting to in-store displays. By 2010 Kinray was the largest privately held pharma wholesaler in the country, grossing $4 billion a year, supplying 80% of independent pharmacies in metro New York. But Rahr says he was exhausted from the \"war\" and felt that he had led his battalion for too long without enjoying the spoils. \"I heard all about these places all my life from my other friends. Single guys or guys who had no businesses or little businesses. I could never go to Saint-Tropez, Ibiza, Monaco, Cannes. Never. I would hear about it, but I never could go.\" He'd had his fill. \"I got up one morning, without telling anybody, and sold the business,\" Rahr says. \"[My wife] didn't even know, neither did my son. I just said, 'What the f—-? I've been in this 42 years.'\" The marriage ended soon thereafter, in a similar manner. \"Cause I wanted to be me—do my own thing,\" says Rahr. \"Wake up in the morning, not have to be responsible, just go and be happy.\" Stewart Rahr, sixtysomething family man and billionaire pharmaceutical entrepreneur, was gone, Stewie Rah Rah, the Number One King of All Fun, was fully unleashed. The Nobu and gun incidents occurred within a month of the divorce announcement, and beginning the next week he was e-mailing photos of himself and various young brunettes from the floor of a Miami Heat game and in front of a private jet, shopping bags in tow. At the Miss Universe pageant Rahr sent a picture of himself mounting a statue of a canine that he dubbed \"Rah Rah doggie style.\" There was no one to put on the brakes. RAHR MAY NO LONGER have a business, but that doesn't keep him from having an office. The billionaire rents 7,500 feet of space on the 24th floor of the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue to go with his Trump apartment nearby. Incidentally, he also wears Trump Success cologne, which he seems to apply every 30 minutes or so. \"He's different than other people,\" says Trump, the previous standard-bearer of New York billionaire gauche. \"He's a character, and he's fun to be with.\" Ostensibly, the business of this office is philanthropy. In reality the core mission is the fabulous life of Rah Rah. The ceiling speakers pipe in his adopted \"Blurred Lines\" party song, along with a rotation of other pop hits. The decor is a mix of trophy case and Pee-wee's 6/11

playhouse. A dummy outfitted in Rahr garb slumps on a white leather couch as videos of the billionaire accepting charity awards loop on the wide-screen Samsung. A coffee table is shingled with magazines that he's appeared in, including a previous edition of The Forbes 400. A magazine rack labeled \"Porn\" sits in the corner next to a sculpture of magenta lips. And that's just the reception area. When Rahr sold Kinray he immediately put $100 million into a foundation. On a relative basis, it's a pittance—FORBES estimates that Rahr is currently worth $1.7 billion, and it's all liquid. An average portfolio would throw off that kind of money every year. But in real terms, it's enough to blast open any door he wants on the American charity circuit. Most Forbes 400 members who've turned to philanthropy as a second career have a specific goal or worldview. Bill Gates applies numbers-based analysis to maximize the efficacy of poverty solutions. Jeff Skoll funds social entrepreneurs. Milken, a prostate cancer survivor, has decided to target his disease. Stewart Rahr JONATHAN KOZOWYK Stewart Rahr describes his foundation goals the way a budding pageant contestant might. He wants to focus on \"our youth, education and medical research.\" But a cursory glance of how he gives—much less his office's inner sanctum, where the photos of him and more than 300 celebrities line the walls like subway tiles—shows that his philanthropy is geared around one 7/11

thing: fame, or access to it. \"I don't look at 'em as pictures,\" says Rahr. \"I look at them as levels of achievements, as trophies of where I am in life.\" His favorite one? \"The one I don't have.\" If you're famous and want money for your cause, Stewie Rah Rah is your man. Spend a day with him at his office and you can see that play out. On his black leather desk, two bells labeled \"Ring for Sex\" bookend a stack of checks for charities sponsored by Alicia Keys, rapper Swizz Beatz and America's Next Top Model personality Nigel Barker. The last one is causing Rahr some irritation. Someone from Make-A-Wish called Rahr on behalf of Barker asking for the $25,000 check. But Rahr won't hand it over to anyone but Barker himself. \"I said, 'I want the guy to come here, this Nigel guy, I like him,'\" Rahr says. What will Make-A-Wish's top supporter do if Barker doesn't show? Rahr says he'll tear up the check if he has to wait much longer. Those on the receiving end clearly find Rahr worth the effort. Says Trump, \"If I'm ever honored, he'll give a million dollars every time, even if it's a small event.\" Michael Milken, who has received $15 million in Rahr largesse, enough to fund an entire team of investigative doctors in Michigan, is still more effusive: \"He's got a heart as big as the entire world. There's different levels of philanthropy. One thing is just writing checks; another is interacting with the individuals.\" The good he generates is unquestioned—and Rahr focuses diligently on making sure everyone knows that. In January he sent members of his e-mail list—cc'ing the likes of Leon Black and Steve Wynn—a $10,000 monthly invoice from a public relations firm. In the e-mail he called out the firm's chief, saying the invoice \"does zero for me,\" and demanded that his Make-A-Wish donations get written about in \"some major publications,\" such as the New York Times or Wall Street Journal (\"No blog stuff.\"). \"This could be your last chance,\" he wrote, before signing off, \"I love helping the world!!!\" Rahr recently struck upon the idea of using his e-mail blasts to further promote his charitable nature. The first five recipients who can correctly identify the celebrity and location featured in the photos get $5,000 for the charity of their choice, with Rahr touting the incrementally increasing figure. In 2010 he engineered a similar promotion with the New York Mets—every team home run generated $1,000 for charity (fan favorite David Wright generated $5,000 per blast), and Rahr was ultimately feted with a \"Home Rah Rah Day.\" Fans took home 25,000 pairs of yellow sunglasses, the sides inscribed with the words \"The #1 King of All Fun.\" This charity-fame-publicity nexus has at least one refugee. Rahr once counted comedian George Lopez among his entourage, thanks in no small part to $700,000 in donations he made to the National Kidney Foundation, where Lopez serves as spokesman. But after a joke 8/11

Rahr made at a 2009 Lopez-hosted fundraiser offended the comedian—Rahr offered just $25 at auction for four tickets to Lopez's new show—Lopez launched a public fight, accusing Rahr of buying friends. No matter: Make-A-Wish has more than 100 celebrities associated with it, many of whom turned out in June at its annual New York gala, where Rahr was the guest of honor. His table included Trump and his wife, Melania; R&B artist John Legend; Carmelo Anthony; and LL Cool J. Most impressive, Stewie Rah Rah brought into his tent two people who otherwise would seem to have nothing in common: Bill Clinton and America's fourth-richest man, conservative power broker David Koch. Koch sat at Rahr's table, sandwiched between Melania Trump and Legend (in 2011 he and Milken were sighted awkwardly dancing to hip-hop beats at a party at Rahr's Hamptons estate). Clinton saluted Rahr remotely, capping off a video tribute that started with clipped greetings from DiCaprio and Wahlberg. \"I'm grateful your generosity will make a lasting positive difference in the lives of so many kids, their families and their communities,\" Clinton said. If you watch the tape carefully, something else pops out. Twice during his tribute Clinton makes reference to his \"friend Stewart Rahr.\" And both times he uses those words, the former president, intentionally (his spokesman says he was twice suppressing a chuckle about the Rah Rah nickname), sticks his tongue into his cheek so squarely that it juts out. IT IS A RARE DOWN WEEKEND in August at Burnt Point, Rahr's sprawling East Hampton mansion. The aspiring Brazilian actress suns by the pool; Rahr sits inside, checking his phone constantly. The only movement in the house is Michael Milken's chef; Rahr has lent his kitchen to the junk bond king's foundation so they can prepare food for a nearby fundraiser. The calm generates memories for Rahr: how he beat out real estate mogul Steve Roth for the $45 million property; when Andrea Bocelli and Lionel Ritchie visited; how Alicia Keys performed there; the time he let his assistant, Nicolette, use it for her wedding. \"I have so much,\" he reflects. \"Why did it all happen to me? There has to be a reason.\" He recalls how Carol cried happy tears when he first toured the house with her. Rahr insists that even after the nine-figure divorce, they remain best friends. They even spent their anniversary together. \"You don't spend 40-some years with somebody...,\" says Carol. \"I'm not telling you it's perfect, but there was a lot of good, a lot of good.\" But that's the past. A few weeks later Rahr forwards FORBES an e-mail exchange with the Robin Hood Foundation to show off both his giving and his relationship with the ex-wife. In 2006 Rahr and Carol donated $1 million to help build schools. A plaque has been erected in 9/11

their honor on a building in Brooklyn, and Rahr confirmed that he'd like to take Carol to see it for her birthday in October. In the same e-mail, though, Rahr discussed the plaque soon to be installed at a second school, in the Bronx. On this one, he said, Carol should be left off. That's a better fate than that of Rahr's older brother and onetime business partner, Elliot. As Rahr helicopters from his Trump apartment to the Hamptons compound and showers money on seemingly any celebrity who will ask, Elliot lives in a dated Upper East Side high rise above a hardware store and pet hospital. He filed for personal bankruptcy in 2010, with assets of $8,810. (Elliot declined to comment; Stewart Rahr says they haven't spoken in 25 years.) Rahr now has a new family. Like Tiffany, whom he's texting now (\"I will be in the city next week,\" she texts back, \"let's do something then :-).\"). And her sister, whom he says he dated before Tiffany. That one didn't go well, and Rahr has been tearing her apart via e-mail lately, cc'ing many on his list, bragging about how he had sex with her on the 13th of the month, adding \"Not sure what day of week I was w your sister, Tiffany!\" And Arnold Palmer and Ron Burkle can read about how he plans to sell a Picasso and then donate the proceeds to her \"STD doctor, who must b soo busy these days!!\" (The sister responds: \"I don't want to be involved with that psycho.\") Just another day for the king of all fun. For now he's focused on lunch, bemoaning the 15 extra pounds that he can't seem to shake as he unwraps a brownie. \"What am I going to do with a beautiful woman like her around?\" he asks of the chef. \"We're not going to be cooking! Maybe some spooning and forking!\" Even as he eats, Rahr remains glued to his phone. Every time he sends an e-mail, the silence of the empty estate is broken as his iPhone rings out a spanking sound followed by a woman's sensual moan. He turns up the volume of the sound system blasting through the house—it's \"Blurred Lines\" again. “Happiness just doesn’t happen,” he says while tapping on his phone. “You have to force yourself.” Follow Steven and Caleb on Twitter. Follow me on Twitter. Send me a secure tip. 10/11

Steven Bertoni I lead Forbes' CEO Network and cover the Forbes Under 30, technology, entrepreneurs, billionaires and Venture Capital. Podcast Host and Founder of the Forbes Opportunity … Reprints & Permissions 11/11

Best Stories Of The Decade: “The Rags-To-Riches Tale Of How Jan Koum Built WhatsApp Into Facebook’s New $19 Billion Baby” forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2019/12/23/exclusive-the-rags-to-riches-tale-of-how-jan-koum-built-whatsapp-into- facebooks-new-19-billion-baby December 23, 2019 Robert Gallagher Editors' Pick|Dec 23, 2019,06:00am EST|5,409 views As this decade ends, we’re republishing our best work from the past 10 years, a journey that reflects Forbes’ two-fold mission: chronicle entrepreneurial capitalism—shining a light on the disruptors changing the world forever—and call out the rogues abusing the system. After Jan Koum, a Ukrainian immigrant who came to America with his mother, agreed to sell WhatsApp to Facebook for $19 billion, he took the contract to the welfare office where he once collected food stamps, signed it on the door—and “WhatsApp’d” the picture to Forbes. Koum almost never talks publicly. Parmy Olson spent 18 months getting him to share his story with our readers. It’s arguably the greatest rags-to-riches saga in American history, told with verve and color within hours of the deal’s announcement. — Randall Lane, Chief Content Officer Originally published Feb. 19, 2014 1/9

Jan Koum picked a meaningful spot to sign the $19 billion deal to sell his company WhatsApp to Facebook earlier today. Koum, cofounder Brian Acton and venture capitalist Jim Goetz of Sequoia drove a few blocks from WhatsApp’s discreet headquarters in Mountain View to a disused white building across the railroad tracks, the former North County Social Services office where Koum, 37, once stood in line to collect food stamps. That’s where the three of them inked the agreement to sell their messaging phenom –which brought in a miniscule $20 million in revenue last year — to the world’s largest social network. Koum, who Forbes believes owns 45% of WhatsApp and thus is suddenly worth $6.8 billion (net of taxes) — was born and raised in a small village outside of Kiev, Ukraine, the only child of a housewife and a construction manager who built hospitals and schools. His house had no hot water, and his parents rarely talked on the phone in case it was tapped by the state. It sounds bad, but Koum still pines for the rural life he once lived, and it’s one of the main reasons he’s so vehemently against the hurly-burly of advertising. At 16, Koum and his mother immigrated to Mountain View, a result of the troubling political and anti-Semitic environment, and got a small two-bedroom apartment though government assistance. His dad never made it over. Koum’s mother had stuffed their suitcases with pens and a stack of 20 Soviet-issued notebooks to avoid paying for school supplies in the U.S. She took up babysitting and Koum swept the floor of a grocery store to help make ends meet. When his mother was diagnosed with cancer, they lived off her disability allowance. Koum spoke English well enough but disliked the casual, flighty nature of American high-school friendships; in Ukraine you went through ten years with the same, small group of friends at school. “In Russia you really learn about a person.” Koum was a troublemaker at school but by 18 had also taught himself computer networking by purchasing manuals from a used book store and returning them when he was done. He joined a hacker group called w00w00 on the Efnet internet relay chat network, squirreled into the servers of Silicon Graphics and chatted with Napster co-founder Sean Fanning. He enrolled at San Jose State University and moonlighted at Ernst & Young as a security tester. In 1997, he found himself sitting across a desk from Acton, Yahoo employee 44, to inspect the company’s advertising system. “You could tell he was a bit different,” recalls Acton. “He was very no-nonsense, like ‘What are your policies here; What are you doing here?’” Other Ernst & Young people were using “touchy-feely” tactics like gifting bottles of wine. “Whatever,\" says Acton. \"Let’s cut to the chase.” It turned out Koum liked Acton’s no-nonsense style too: “Neither of us has an ability to bullshit,” says Koum. Six months later Koum interviewed at Yahoo and got a job as an infrastructure engineer. He was still at San Jose State University when two weeks into his job at Yahoo, one of the company’s servers broke. Yahoo cofounder David Filo called his mobile for help. “I’m in class,” Koum answered discreetly. “What the fuck are you doing in class?” Filo said. “Get your ass into the office.” Filo had a small team of server engineers and needed all the help he could get. “I hated school anyway,” Koum says. He dropped out. 2/9

When Koum’s mother died of cancer in 2000 the young Ukrainian was suddenly alone; his father had died in 1997. He credits Acton with reaching out and offering support. “He would invite me to his house,” Koum remembers. The two went skiing and played soccer and ultimate Frisbee. 3/9

Forbes 2014 Gabriela Hasbun Forbes 4/9

Over the next nine years the pair also watched Yahoo go through multiple ups and downs. Acton invested in the dotcom boom, and lost millions in the 2000 bust. For all of his distaste for advertising now he was also deep in it back then, getting pulled in to help launch Yahoo’s important and much-delayed advertising platform Project Panama in 2006. “Dealing with ads is depressing,” he says now. “You don’t make anyone’s life better by making advertisements work better.” He was emotionally drained. “I could see it on him in the hallways,” says Koum, who wasn’t enjoying things either. In his LinkedIn profile, Koum unenthusiastically describes his last three years at Yahoo with the words, “Did some work.” In September 2007 Koum and Acton finally left Yahoo and took a year to decompress, traveling around South America and playing ultimate frisbee. Both applied, and failed, to work at Facebook. \"We're part of the Facebook reject club,\" Acton says. Koum was eating into his $400,000 in savings from Yahoo, and drifting. Then in January 2009, he bought an iPhone and realized that the seven-month old App Store was about to spawn a whole new industry of apps. He visited the home of Alex Fishman, a Russian friend who would invite the local Russian community to his place in West San Jose for weekly pizza and movie nights. Up to 40 people sometimes showed up. The two of them stood for hours talking about Koum’s idea for an app over tea at Fishman’s kitchen counter. “Jan was showing me his address book,” recalls Fishman. “His thinking was it would be really cool to have statuses next to individual names of the people.” The statuses would show if you were on a call, your battery was low, or you were at the gym. Koum could do the backend, but he needed an iPhone developer, so Fishman introduced Koum to Igor Solomennikov, a developer in Russia that he’d found on RentACoder.com. Koum almost immediately chose the name WhatsApp because it sounded like “what’s up,” and a week later on his birthday, Feb. 24, 2009, he incorporated WhatsApp Inc. in California. “He’s very thorough,” says Fishman. The app hadn’t even been written yet. Koum spent days creating the backend code to synch his app with any phone number in the world, poring over a Wikipedia entry that listed international dialing prefixes — he would spend many infuriating months updating it for the hundreds of regional nuances. Early WhatsApp kept crashing or getting stuck, and when Fishman installed it on his phone, only a handful of the hundreds numbers on his address book - mostly local Russian friends - had also downloaded it. Over ribs at Tony Roma’s in San Jose, Fishman went over the problems and Koum took notes in one of the Soviet-era notebooks he'd brought over years before and saved for important projects. The following month after a game of ultimate frisbee with Acton, Koum grudgingly admitted he should probably fold up and start looking for a job. Acton balked. “You’d be an idiot to quit now,” he said. “Give it a few more months.” 5/9

Help came from Apple when it launched push notifications in June 2009, letting developers ping users when they weren’t using an app. Jan updated WhatsApp so that each time you changed your status — “Can’t talk, I’m at the gym” — it would ping everyone in your network. Fishman’s Russian friends started using it to ping each other with jokey custom statuses like, “I woke up late,” or “I’m on my way.” “At some point it sort of became instant messaging,” says Fishman. “We started using it as ‘Hey how are you?’ And then someone would reply.” Jan watched the changing statuses on a Mac Mini at his town house in Santa Clara, and realized he’d inadvertently created a messaging service. “Being able to reach somebody half way across the world instantly, on a device that is always with you, was powerful,” says Koum. The only other free texting service around at the time was BlackBerry’s BBM, but that only worked among BlackBerries. There was Google’s G-Talk and Skype, but WhatsApp was unique in that the login was your own phone number. Koum released WhatsApp 2.0 with a messaging component and watched his active users suddenly swell to 250,000. He went to see Acton, who was still unemployed and dabbling in another startup idea that wasn’t going anywhere. The two sat at Acton’s kitchen table and started sending messages to each other on WhatsApp, already with the famous double check mark that showed another phone had received a message. Acton realized he was looking at a potentially richer SMS experience – and more effective than the so-called MMS messages for sending photos and other media that often didn’t work. “You had the whole open-ended bounty of the Internet to work with,” he says. He and Koum worked out of the Red Rock Cafe, a watering hole for startup founders on the corner of California and Bryant in Mountain View; the entire second floor is still full of people with laptops perched on wobbly tables, silently writing code. The two were often up there, Acton scribbling notes and Koum typing. In October Acton got five ex-Yahoo friends to invest $250,000 in seed funding, and as a result was granted cofounder status and a stake. He officially joined on Nov. 1. (The two founders still have a combined stake in excess of 60% — a large number for a tech startup — and Koum is thought to have the larger share because he implemented the original idea nine months before Acton came on board. Early employees are said to have comparatively large equity shares of close to 1%. Koum won’t comment on the matter.) The pair were getting flooded with emails from iPhone users, excited by the prospect of international free texting and desperate to “WhatsApp” their friends on Nokias and BlackBerries. With Android just a blip on the radar, Koum hired an old friend who lived in LA, Chris Peiffer to make the BlackBerry version of WhatsApp. “I was skeptical,” Peiffer remembers. “People have SMS, right?” Koum explained that people’s texts were actually 6/9

metered in different countries. “It stinks,” he told him. “It’s a dead technology like a fax machine left over from the seventies, sitting there as a cash cow for carriers.” Peiffer looked at the eye-popping user growth and joined. Through their Yahoo network they found a startup subleasing some cubicles on a converted warehouse on Evelyn Ave. The whole other half of the building was occupied by Evernote, who would eventually kick them out to take up the whole building. They wore blankets for warmth and worked off cheap Ikea tables. Even then there was no WhatsApp sign for the office. “Their directions were ‘Find the Evernote building. Go round the back. Find an unmarked door. Knock,’” says Michael Donohue, one of WhatsApp’s first BlackBerry engineers recalling his first interview. With Koum and Acton working for free for the first few years, their biggest early cost was sending verification texts to users. Koum and Acton were using cutthroat SMS brokers like Click-A-Tell, who'd send an SMS to the U.S. for 2 cents, but to the Middle East for 65 cents. Today SMS verification runs the company about $500,000 a month. The costs weren’t so steep back then, but high enough to drain Koum’s bank account. Fortunately WhatsApp was gradually bringing in revenue, roughly $5,000 a month by early 2010 and enough to cover the costs then. The founders occasionally switched the app from \"free\" to \"paid\" so they wouldn't grow too fast. In Dec. 2009 they updated WhatsApp for the iPhone to send photos, and were shocked to see user growth increasing even when it had the $1 price tag. “You know, I think we can actually stay paid,” Acton told Koum. By early 2011 WhatsApp was squarely in the top 20 of all apps in the U.S. App Store. During a dim sum lunch with staff, someone asked Koum why he wasn't crowing to the press about it. “Marketing and press kicks up dust,” Koum replied. “It gets in your eye, and then you’re not focusing on the product.” Venture capitalists didn’t need the press to tell them WhatsApp was going viral. Koum and Acton were batting away all requests to talk. Acton saw VC funding as a bailout. But Sequoia partner Jim Goetz was persistent, spending eight months working his contacts to get either founder to engage. He’d met with a dozen other companies in the messaging space like Pinger, Tango and Baluga, but it was clear WhatsApp was the leader, and to Goetz’s surprise the startup was already paying corporate income taxes: “The only time I’ve seen that in my venture career.” He eventually sat down with Koum and Acton at the Red Rock Cafe, answered a “barrage” of their questions and promised not to push advertising models on them but act as a strategic advisor. They eventually agreed to take $8 million from Sequoia on top of their $250,000 seed funding. Two years later in Feb. 2013, when WhatsApp’s user base had swelled to about 200 million active users and its staff to 50, Acton and Koum agreed it was time to raise some more money. “For insurance,” says Acton, who recalled that his mother, who ran her own freight forwarding businesses, used to lose sleep over making payroll. “You never want to be a position where you can’t make payroll.” They decided to hold a second funding round, in 7/9

secret. Sequoia would invest another $50 million, valuing WhatsApp at $1.5 billion. At the time Acton took a screenshot of WhatsApp’s bank balance and sent it to Goetz. It read $8.257 million, still in excess of all the money they’d received years before. Now with an even bigger number in his bank account, Acton went to a local landlord, interested in leasing a new three-story building around the corner. The landlord didn’t know who WhatsApp was, but the money talked. The new building is now under construction, and WhatsApp will move in this summer as its staff doubles to 100. In early February 2014, Koum zooms past the new building in his Porsche on the way to a boxing class that he often misses, and is now late for. Will he finally put up a “WhatsApp” sign? “I can’t see a reason for there being a sign. It’s an ego boost,” he scoffs. “We all know where we work.” Later he pulls up to nondescript block building in San Jose, grabs a gym bag and walks into a dimly lit gym for a private lesson with a diminutive, gum-chewing coach standing next to a boom box blasting rap music. “He likes Kanye,” the coach says smiling. He holds two mitts up high as Koum throws slow but powerful punches. Every few minutes Koum sits down for a break, slipping the gloves off and checking for messages from Acton about WhatsApp’s servers. Koum’s boxing style is very focused, the coach says. He doesn’t want to get into kickboxing like most other students, but just get the punching right. You could say the same for a certain messaging service that wants to be as straightforward as possible. It’s true, Koum says, ruddy faced as he puts on his socks and shoes. “I want to do one thing, and do it well.” Ryan Mac and Kerry Dolan contributed reporting for this story. Follow me on Twitter. Send me a secure tip. 8/9

Parmy Olson I cover developments in AI, robotics, chatbots, digital assistants and emerging tech in Europe. I've spent close to a decade profiling the hackers and dreamers who are … Reprints & Permissions 9/9

Best Stories Of The Decade: “The Rags-To-Riches Tale Of How Jan Koum Built WhatsApp Into Facebook’s New $19 Billion Baby” forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2019/12/23/exclusive-the-rags-to-riches-tale-of-how-jan-koum-built-whatsapp-into- facebooks-new-19-billion-baby December 23, 2019 Robert Gallagher Editors' Pick|Dec 23, 2019,06:00am EST|5,409 views As this decade ends, we’re republishing our best work from the past 10 years, a journey that reflects Forbes’ two-fold mission: chronicle entrepreneurial capitalism—shining a light on the disruptors changing the world forever—and call out the rogues abusing the system. After Jan Koum, a Ukrainian immigrant who came to America with his mother, agreed to sell WhatsApp to Facebook for $19 billion, he took the contract to the welfare office where he once collected food stamps, signed it on the door—and “WhatsApp’d” the picture to Forbes. Koum almost never talks publicly. Parmy Olson spent 18 months getting him to share his story with our readers. It’s arguably the greatest rags-to-riches saga in American history, told with verve and color within hours of the deal’s announcement. — Randall Lane, Chief Content Officer Originally published Feb. 19, 2014 1/9

Jan Koum picked a meaningful spot to sign the $19 billion deal to sell his company WhatsApp to Facebook earlier today. Koum, cofounder Brian Acton and venture capitalist Jim Goetz of Sequoia drove a few blocks from WhatsApp’s discreet headquarters in Mountain View to a disused white building across the railroad tracks, the former North County Social Services office where Koum, 37, once stood in line to collect food stamps. That’s where the three of them inked the agreement to sell their messaging phenom –which brought in a miniscule $20 million in revenue last year — to the world’s largest social network. Koum, who Forbes believes owns 45% of WhatsApp and thus is suddenly worth $6.8 billion (net of taxes) — was born and raised in a small village outside of Kiev, Ukraine, the only child of a housewife and a construction manager who built hospitals and schools. His house had no hot water, and his parents rarely talked on the phone in case it was tapped by the state. It sounds bad, but Koum still pines for the rural life he once lived, and it’s one of the main reasons he’s so vehemently against the hurly-burly of advertising. At 16, Koum and his mother immigrated to Mountain View, a result of the troubling political and anti-Semitic environment, and got a small two-bedroom apartment though government assistance. His dad never made it over. Koum’s mother had stuffed their suitcases with pens and a stack of 20 Soviet-issued notebooks to avoid paying for school supplies in the U.S. She took up babysitting and Koum swept the floor of a grocery store to help make ends meet. When his mother was diagnosed with cancer, they lived off her disability allowance. Koum spoke English well enough but disliked the casual, flighty nature of American high-school friendships; in Ukraine you went through ten years with the same, small group of friends at school. “In Russia you really learn about a person.” Koum was a troublemaker at school but by 18 had also taught himself computer networking by purchasing manuals from a used book store and returning them when he was done. He joined a hacker group called w00w00 on the Efnet internet relay chat network, squirreled into the servers of Silicon Graphics and chatted with Napster co-founder Sean Fanning. He enrolled at San Jose State University and moonlighted at Ernst & Young as a security tester. In 1997, he found himself sitting across a desk from Acton, Yahoo employee 44, to inspect the company’s advertising system. “You could tell he was a bit different,” recalls Acton. “He was very no-nonsense, like ‘What are your policies here; What are you doing here?’” Other Ernst & Young people were using “touchy-feely” tactics like gifting bottles of wine. “Whatever,\" says Acton. \"Let’s cut to the chase.” It turned out Koum liked Acton’s no-nonsense style too: “Neither of us has an ability to bullshit,” says Koum. Six months later Koum interviewed at Yahoo and got a job as an infrastructure engineer. He was still at San Jose State University when two weeks into his job at Yahoo, one of the company’s servers broke. Yahoo cofounder David Filo called his mobile for help. “I’m in class,” Koum answered discreetly. “What the fuck are you doing in class?” Filo said. “Get your ass into the office.” Filo had a small team of server engineers and needed all the help he could get. “I hated school anyway,” Koum says. He dropped out. 2/9

When Koum’s mother died of cancer in 2000 the young Ukrainian was suddenly alone; his father had died in 1997. He credits Acton with reaching out and offering support. “He would invite me to his house,” Koum remembers. The two went skiing and played soccer and ultimate Frisbee. 3/9

Forbes 2014 Gabriela Hasbun Forbes 4/9

Over the next nine years the pair also watched Yahoo go through multiple ups and downs. Acton invested in the dotcom boom, and lost millions in the 2000 bust. For all of his distaste for advertising now he was also deep in it back then, getting pulled in to help launch Yahoo’s important and much-delayed advertising platform Project Panama in 2006. “Dealing with ads is depressing,” he says now. “You don’t make anyone’s life better by making advertisements work better.” He was emotionally drained. “I could see it on him in the hallways,” says Koum, who wasn’t enjoying things either. In his LinkedIn profile, Koum unenthusiastically describes his last three years at Yahoo with the words, “Did some work.” In September 2007 Koum and Acton finally left Yahoo and took a year to decompress, traveling around South America and playing ultimate frisbee. Both applied, and failed, to work at Facebook. \"We're part of the Facebook reject club,\" Acton says. Koum was eating into his $400,000 in savings from Yahoo, and drifting. Then in January 2009, he bought an iPhone and realized that the seven-month old App Store was about to spawn a whole new industry of apps. He visited the home of Alex Fishman, a Russian friend who would invite the local Russian community to his place in West San Jose for weekly pizza and movie nights. Up to 40 people sometimes showed up. The two of them stood for hours talking about Koum’s idea for an app over tea at Fishman’s kitchen counter. “Jan was showing me his address book,” recalls Fishman. “His thinking was it would be really cool to have statuses next to individual names of the people.” The statuses would show if you were on a call, your battery was low, or you were at the gym. Koum could do the backend, but he needed an iPhone developer, so Fishman introduced Koum to Igor Solomennikov, a developer in Russia that he’d found on RentACoder.com. Koum almost immediately chose the name WhatsApp because it sounded like “what’s up,” and a week later on his birthday, Feb. 24, 2009, he incorporated WhatsApp Inc. in California. “He’s very thorough,” says Fishman. The app hadn’t even been written yet. Koum spent days creating the backend code to synch his app with any phone number in the world, poring over a Wikipedia entry that listed international dialing prefixes — he would spend many infuriating months updating it for the hundreds of regional nuances. Early WhatsApp kept crashing or getting stuck, and when Fishman installed it on his phone, only a handful of the hundreds numbers on his address book - mostly local Russian friends - had also downloaded it. Over ribs at Tony Roma’s in San Jose, Fishman went over the problems and Koum took notes in one of the Soviet-era notebooks he'd brought over years before and saved for important projects. The following month after a game of ultimate frisbee with Acton, Koum grudgingly admitted he should probably fold up and start looking for a job. Acton balked. “You’d be an idiot to quit now,” he said. “Give it a few more months.” 5/9

Help came from Apple when it launched push notifications in June 2009, letting developers ping users when they weren’t using an app. Jan updated WhatsApp so that each time you changed your status — “Can’t talk, I’m at the gym” — it would ping everyone in your network. Fishman’s Russian friends started using it to ping each other with jokey custom statuses like, “I woke up late,” or “I’m on my way.” “At some point it sort of became instant messaging,” says Fishman. “We started using it as ‘Hey how are you?’ And then someone would reply.” Jan watched the changing statuses on a Mac Mini at his town house in Santa Clara, and realized he’d inadvertently created a messaging service. “Being able to reach somebody half way across the world instantly, on a device that is always with you, was powerful,” says Koum. The only other free texting service around at the time was BlackBerry’s BBM, but that only worked among BlackBerries. There was Google’s G-Talk and Skype, but WhatsApp was unique in that the login was your own phone number. Koum released WhatsApp 2.0 with a messaging component and watched his active users suddenly swell to 250,000. He went to see Acton, who was still unemployed and dabbling in another startup idea that wasn’t going anywhere. The two sat at Acton’s kitchen table and started sending messages to each other on WhatsApp, already with the famous double check mark that showed another phone had received a message. Acton realized he was looking at a potentially richer SMS experience – and more effective than the so-called MMS messages for sending photos and other media that often didn’t work. “You had the whole open-ended bounty of the Internet to work with,” he says. He and Koum worked out of the Red Rock Cafe, a watering hole for startup founders on the corner of California and Bryant in Mountain View; the entire second floor is still full of people with laptops perched on wobbly tables, silently writing code. The two were often up there, Acton scribbling notes and Koum typing. In October Acton got five ex-Yahoo friends to invest $250,000 in seed funding, and as a result was granted cofounder status and a stake. He officially joined on Nov. 1. (The two founders still have a combined stake in excess of 60% — a large number for a tech startup — and Koum is thought to have the larger share because he implemented the original idea nine months before Acton came on board. Early employees are said to have comparatively large equity shares of close to 1%. Koum won’t comment on the matter.) The pair were getting flooded with emails from iPhone users, excited by the prospect of international free texting and desperate to “WhatsApp” their friends on Nokias and BlackBerries. With Android just a blip on the radar, Koum hired an old friend who lived in LA, Chris Peiffer to make the BlackBerry version of WhatsApp. “I was skeptical,” Peiffer remembers. “People have SMS, right?” Koum explained that people’s texts were actually 6/9

metered in different countries. “It stinks,” he told him. “It’s a dead technology like a fax machine left over from the seventies, sitting there as a cash cow for carriers.” Peiffer looked at the eye-popping user growth and joined. Through their Yahoo network they found a startup subleasing some cubicles on a converted warehouse on Evelyn Ave. The whole other half of the building was occupied by Evernote, who would eventually kick them out to take up the whole building. They wore blankets for warmth and worked off cheap Ikea tables. Even then there was no WhatsApp sign for the office. “Their directions were ‘Find the Evernote building. Go round the back. Find an unmarked door. Knock,’” says Michael Donohue, one of WhatsApp’s first BlackBerry engineers recalling his first interview. With Koum and Acton working for free for the first few years, their biggest early cost was sending verification texts to users. Koum and Acton were using cutthroat SMS brokers like Click-A-Tell, who'd send an SMS to the U.S. for 2 cents, but to the Middle East for 65 cents. Today SMS verification runs the company about $500,000 a month. The costs weren’t so steep back then, but high enough to drain Koum’s bank account. Fortunately WhatsApp was gradually bringing in revenue, roughly $5,000 a month by early 2010 and enough to cover the costs then. The founders occasionally switched the app from \"free\" to \"paid\" so they wouldn't grow too fast. In Dec. 2009 they updated WhatsApp for the iPhone to send photos, and were shocked to see user growth increasing even when it had the $1 price tag. “You know, I think we can actually stay paid,” Acton told Koum. By early 2011 WhatsApp was squarely in the top 20 of all apps in the U.S. App Store. During a dim sum lunch with staff, someone asked Koum why he wasn't crowing to the press about it. “Marketing and press kicks up dust,” Koum replied. “It gets in your eye, and then you’re not focusing on the product.” Venture capitalists didn’t need the press to tell them WhatsApp was going viral. Koum and Acton were batting away all requests to talk. Acton saw VC funding as a bailout. But Sequoia partner Jim Goetz was persistent, spending eight months working his contacts to get either founder to engage. He’d met with a dozen other companies in the messaging space like Pinger, Tango and Baluga, but it was clear WhatsApp was the leader, and to Goetz’s surprise the startup was already paying corporate income taxes: “The only time I’ve seen that in my venture career.” He eventually sat down with Koum and Acton at the Red Rock Cafe, answered a “barrage” of their questions and promised not to push advertising models on them but act as a strategic advisor. They eventually agreed to take $8 million from Sequoia on top of their $250,000 seed funding. Two years later in Feb. 2013, when WhatsApp’s user base had swelled to about 200 million active users and its staff to 50, Acton and Koum agreed it was time to raise some more money. “For insurance,” says Acton, who recalled that his mother, who ran her own freight forwarding businesses, used to lose sleep over making payroll. “You never want to be a position where you can’t make payroll.” They decided to hold a second funding round, in 7/9

secret. Sequoia would invest another $50 million, valuing WhatsApp at $1.5 billion. At the time Acton took a screenshot of WhatsApp’s bank balance and sent it to Goetz. It read $8.257 million, still in excess of all the money they’d received years before. Now with an even bigger number in his bank account, Acton went to a local landlord, interested in leasing a new three-story building around the corner. The landlord didn’t know who WhatsApp was, but the money talked. The new building is now under construction, and WhatsApp will move in this summer as its staff doubles to 100. In early February 2014, Koum zooms past the new building in his Porsche on the way to a boxing class that he often misses, and is now late for. Will he finally put up a “WhatsApp” sign? “I can’t see a reason for there being a sign. It’s an ego boost,” he scoffs. “We all know where we work.” Later he pulls up to nondescript block building in San Jose, grabs a gym bag and walks into a dimly lit gym for a private lesson with a diminutive, gum-chewing coach standing next to a boom box blasting rap music. “He likes Kanye,” the coach says smiling. He holds two mitts up high as Koum throws slow but powerful punches. Every few minutes Koum sits down for a break, slipping the gloves off and checking for messages from Acton about WhatsApp’s servers. Koum’s boxing style is very focused, the coach says. He doesn’t want to get into kickboxing like most other students, but just get the punching right. You could say the same for a certain messaging service that wants to be as straightforward as possible. It’s true, Koum says, ruddy faced as he puts on his socks and shoes. “I want to do one thing, and do it well.” Ryan Mac and Kerry Dolan contributed reporting for this story. Follow me on Twitter. Send me a secure tip. 8/9

Parmy Olson I cover developments in AI, robotics, chatbots, digital assistants and emerging tech in Europe. I've spent close to a decade profiling the hackers and dreamers who are … Reprints & Permissions 9/9

Beverage Wars: How To Find Success In The Hard Seltzer Category forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2020/10/15/beverage-wars-how-to-find-success-in-the-hard-seltzer-category October 15, 2020 Oct 15, 2020,09:20am EDT|1,146 views Grant McDougall is the CEO and Co-Founder of BlueOcean, an AI brand strategy platform that helps companies outmaneuver the competition. getty Competition in the beverage industry has always been hard-fought. These battles' modern era is notably marked by the neverending \"Beer Wars\" that have played out on TV, in sports stadiums and during nearly every other live and broadcasted event in the past 50 years. If there's one thing to take away from this war, it's that branding and marketing make or break a beverage's success. Now, a new category in the alcoholic beverage industry is threatening to challenge both beer and spirits brands with explosive growth only dreamed of in established industries. That challenger? Hard seltzers. 1/4

How popular is this growing category? According to a recent report, in the month of August 2020, hard seltzer brands White Claw, Truly and Bon & Viv outsold the top six beer brands combined. In fact, the recent growth of the hard seltzer market is projected to continue, with the industry growing from a value of $4.5 billion today to $14.5 billion by 2027. How Did We Get Here? While distribution, product assortment and pricing are factors as the brands vie for consumer preference, other attributes will likely be the real drivers in this emerging lifestyle category. As health-conscious consumers turn to hard seltzer over beer for its lower carbs, hard seltzers are also winning and distinguishing themselves as \"occasion\" beverages. Simply put, right now, they align better with people's perceptions about themselves, who they want to be and how they want to spend their time. Upstart brands such as Truly and White Claw have been able to lean in hard on the lifestyle aspects, quickly gaining market share. The challenge these early entrants face will come from multiple fronts as beer companies, including Corona and AB InBev, look to gain back some of the losses their traditional beer products are suffering at this category's hands. AB InBev is taking a multipronged approach, on the one hand leaning on the strength of the Bud Light brand, but also looking to appeal to the nonbeer audience with its Bon & Viv brand. While beer companies have the infrastructure to shift gears to hard seltzer quickly, it is more complicated, though not impossible, for distillers to play in this space as well. Smirnoff, which has done well with flavored vodkas, looks to replicate that success in the hard seltzer category with nearly a dozen flavor variants. Keys To Winning The Seltzer Wars So, what are the keys to winning the heart and minds (and mouths) of consumers either already in the hard seltzer market or those looking to try something new? Brands in the category may actually have a leg up during the pandemic, as consumers shy away from mixed drinks that require communal bottles. Nielsen data shows that during the 15-week \"pandemic period\" ending June 13, sales of hard seltzer quadrupled compared to the previous year. Several key factors are likely to hold sway: • Segmentation: Brands need to target the consumer with pinpoint accuracy. Hard seltzer has carved out a space on store shelves, and in the consumer's mind, by connecting with a particular type of lifestyle: healthier, outgoing, social. Truly and White Claw clearly and effectively explaining what their brands are all about while Smirnoff has struggled to make the same connection. Messaging, packaging, flavors and all other aspects must speak to this lifestyle. • Development and Distribution: If traditional brand extensions and product roll-outs happen on an annual basis, it feels like change happens closer to quarterly in the hard seltzer category. New competitors and innovative flavor and alcoholic combinations all combine to 2/4

make this a rapidly evolving category. Brands need to match this pace as customers can quickly get bored and will be on the lookout for something new. Millennials, in particular, fit this fickle mindset, with 60% indicating they \"like trying new drinks\" in a recent poll. The successful brands will be those that can consistently get their products on the shelves, building the type of familiarity and affinity that leads to long-term customers. • Engagement: The hard seltzer consumers expect not only to find their brand of choice on the digital platforms they frequent, but also for brands to be receptive. It was reported earlier this year that Bank of America's Hard Seltzer Sentiment Tracker found \"the volume of conversations on Instagram about hard seltzer in January was six times greater than last January.\" Consumers can be a valuable source of innovation, suggesting new flavors or providing insights to promotion and sponsorship opportunities. Savvy brands should not only absorb this information but also acknowledge the consumers who will drive the passion for the brand. Undoubtedly, I believe the hard seltzer category will continue to grow in the short-term, and the competition for market share will remain intense. Winning the \"Seltzer Wars\" has the potential to propel a challenger brand into an established position or help legacy brands make up shortfalls from other parts of their portfolio. It will be fascinating to see who comes out victorious. Does hard seltzer have the staying power to become a long-lasting category, or is it just a trend that will come and go? We'll see what the future holds. Forbes Business Council is the foremost growth and networking organization for business owners and leaders. Do I qualify? Follow me on LinkedIn. Check out my website. 3/4

Grant McDougall Grant McDougall is the CEO and Co-Founder of BlueOcean, an AI brand strategy platform that helps companies outmaneuver the competition. Read Grant McDougall's full … Reprints & Permissions 4/4

Claims About Risks Of Caffeine Consumption In Pregnancy Misleading forbes.com/sites/helenalbert/2020/08/29/claims-about-caffeine-and-pregnancy-misleading August 29, 2020 You may have seen claims in the news over the last week that pregnant women should avoid all caffeine, as it puts their unborn baby at risk, but are these claims really true? The news coverage is based on a recently published academic 'review' article. The author — Jack James, a professor of psychology at Reykjavík University in Iceland — concludes in his article that \"maternal caffeine consumption is reliably associated with major negative pregnancy outcomes\" and suggests pregnant women should avoid all caffeine during pregnancy. The review, which was published in the medical journal BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine, has been widely covered by international media such as The Guardian and The New York Times, among many other publications. However, an analysis of its contents by Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, an epidemiologist from the University of Wollongong in Australia, suggests its conclusions are misleading. Meyerowitz- Katz, who has written about this topic before, called out some of the article’s claims in a Twitter thread he published this week. While it can’t be denied that high levels of caffeine intake by pregnant women can be dangerous for unborn babies, it is widely accepted, and indeed advised by health advisory bodies such as the World Health Organization, that drinking less than 300 mg caffeine per day (approximately 2-3 cups coffee) is associated with minimal health risks to mother and baby. 1/5

Pregnant woman drinking coffee. getty James' article suggests that, contrary to this advice, all caffeine should be avoided in pregnancy. But, as highlighted by Meyerowitz-Katz, there are several problems with the review. First, it is not based on new findings from a recent clinical study. It is a review of the already published medical literature by one person. “This is a narrative review, which basically means that it is subject to the opinions of the author. To a great extent, narrative reviews are the academic version of opinion pieces,” Meyerowitz-Katz explained. “What this means is that calling the paper new evidence is wrong. This review represents the opinions and expertise of Prof James, and while he seems to have read a lot that still doesn't make it new evidence.” Second, when Meyerowitz-Katz looked more closely at the 40 plus studies included in the review the conclusions drawn by James did not seem to align with the findings of all the original study authors. 2/5

For example, the biggest study included in the review that looked at links between pre- pregnancy caffeine intake and miscarriage was stated by James as evidence supporting his theory that all levels of caffeine consumption are harmful. But, the study actually stated that only higher levels of coffee consumption (400 mg per day or more) could increase miscarriage risk. It should also be noted that the researchers in this study found that women who drank decaffeinated coffee had the same risk for miscarriage as those drinking caffeinated coffee and there were no links found between miscarriage and caffeinated tea or soda consumption. Similarly, Meyerowitz-Katz pointed out two other studies — included in the analysis to back up claims that very small amounts of caffeine are harmful in pregnancy — that actually concluded that sticking to the WHO recommendation of less than 300 mg per day should be fine for pregnant women. The third, and arguably most concerning, issue with the review article is that a table (table 2) included in the article to summarize its findings contains significant errors. Tweet from Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz (published on 26 Aug 2020) showing 'table 2' in James' study. Twitter screen shot - H. Albert 3/5

There are several mistakes, and you can see the details clearly outlined in Meyerowitz-Katz’s Twitter thread. But a couple of examples include: The first column is titled ‘Risk per 100mg’ caffeine consumed – which should actually read relative risk increase per additional 100mg consumed. This may not mean much to a non-statistician, but Meyerowitz-Katz explains that the result is that all the risk estimates in the next column ‘Risk at 200mg’ caffeine consumption are wrong and overestimated. The author then uses these incorrect estimates of risk to calculate the number of ‘negative pregnancy events' associated with caffeine intake in the last column – again leading to a massive overestimate of the number of miscarriages linked to caffeine. Meyerowitz-Katz and other researchers in the field agree that evidence suggests that high amounts of caffeine intake in pregnancy are a bad idea. It's hard to predict what the results of future research might show, but it does seem that small amounts of caffeine intake during pregnancy may not be as damaging as implied in James’ review. “My main take-home for anyone who is pregnant is to try not to worry about headlines, because they are usually misleading, and talk to your doctor if you're worried,” said Meyerowitz-Katz. Helen Albert I’m a freelance science and health journalist based in Berlin. I have more than 10 years’ experience writing about all aspects of life sciences, including digital 4/5

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COVID-19 And The Beverage Industry: How Fever-Tree Is Adapting forbes.com/sites/bradjaphe/2020/11/13/covid-19-and-the-beverage-industry-how-fever-tree-is-adapting November 13, 2020 Pink Grapefruit Mixer Fever Tree These are unprecedented times. And we’re all facing historic challenges. But for the food and beverage industry, the threat is nothing short of existential. By August of 2020 it was already estimated that nearly 16,000 restaurants across the country had shuttered permanently since the start of the pandemic. That number is expected to triple before year’s end. To provide some glimmer of hope, we’ll be talking to professionals from across the space for a sense of how they’re adapting to the realities of the day, while preparing for a more promising future. Starting things off is a conversation with Amanda Stackman, an executive at Fever-Tree USA. As marketing director for one of the world’s top-selling premium mixers, she has had the unenviable task of keeping things steady for the brand throughout the COVID-19 era. Here’s how she’s helped navigate the ship through these treacherous waters. When did Fever-Tree first realize the seriousness of the pandemic and its potential impact on the company and its sales? 1/5

Immediately. As with everyone else, we followed the news as it unfolded and took it day by day, keeping tabs on our beloved bars, restaurants and hotel partners, as well as our essential retailers. This global pandemic has brought unforeseen consequences for all, no one person or company has been immune to its effects. And since COVID-19 continues to remain, these \"strange times\" are officially becoming the \"new normal\" and we have been focusing on what we can do versus what we can’t. Fever-Tree is known as an on-premise brand that is served at top bars and restaurants around the world. What percentage of Fever-Tree’s on-premise accounts shut down initially? At the start of the pandemic, the entire hospitality industry entered a period of disruption and uncertainty as a result of nationwide shutdowns. As time progressed, some of our partners were able to turn the lights back on and churn out novel to-go cocktails and get creative with outdoor set-ups, making use of temporary legislation. What did you find most inspiring about that difficult time period? This pandemic is spotlighting the tenacity of bars and restaurants to innovate, as well as the close-knit nature of the drinks industry. Were you able to help any of your on-premise accounts? We were able to provide the tools that bars needed to get drinks out the door, whether that was branded cocktail carriers, tote bags or bundling our mixers with pre-batched drinks to be topped off at home. As streets and parking lanes morphed into dining rooms on-the-fly, we got creative and built mobile bars to help trade across the U.S. when faced with the prospect of an outdoor-only set-up. Let’s talk about that phrase that is on the tip of everyone’s tongue in the corporate world: the pivot. What did it look like for Fever-Tree? We prioritized the consumer experience first and foremost. This is a unique time where we were actually practicing what we preached or in this case offering. We were already building our e-commerce presence, but this accelerated the need. We positioned ourselves as agilely as possible to meet this new demand in this new space. Our saleforce engaged across big box to local liquor to cocktail delivery platforms. Mixers were greatly needed and needed to be delivered during the pandemic and we worked backwards to get there. There were lot of moving parts. What consumption patterns emerged during the pandemic? Mixing cocktails at home was already tracking before the pandemic. But as we shelter in place — with lockdowns and bar closures — undoubtedly people are getting more ambitious and enthusiastic with what and how they go about making a cocktail. Quarantine has 2/5

afforded a sampling opportunity for premium mixers, as ease is a key theme for many consumers who are just now trying their hands at mixology. Two to three ingredient cocktails have soared due to simplicity and versatility, ultimately drawing more households to our range. Did you launch any new products during the pandemic? Yes. Fever-Tree Sparkling Pink Grapefruit. Despite launching during the pandemic, [it] has been our strongest launch, fruitfully tapping into the unceasingly popular tequila category. Tequila grew 64% over the summer and our soda provided a two-step solution to replicate the beloved Paloma, the spirit's simple serve highball that most consumers anticipated ordering at their favorite bar this past Cinco De Mayo. Many of our bar partners jumped at the chance to offer to-go Paloma and Spritz kits to pair our mixers with tequila and vodka bottles — a win/win to run through inventory and offer a D-I-Y option for patrons. How has Fever-Tree supported the bartending community throughout the pandemic? We knew we had to get creative to do our part to support our friends in need on a professional and personal level. We started by redirecting costs from experiential to empower our bartenders to create meaningful local impact and be part of the solution. We hired bartenders to be our content creators, to host Instagram takeovers and to teach virtual mixology series. We gave bartenders a spotlight in the media, bringing attention to their craft and accounts. We also sent mixer care packages to furloughed bartenders and barbacks to raise their spirits and opened up tabs at accounts to toast the heart of the industry. 3/5

Amanda Stackman at the Fever-Tree Porch in midtown Manhattan Fever-Tree US 4/5

Brad Japhe Brad Japhe is a freelance journalist specializing in food, beverage, and travel. He moonlights as a beer and spirits consultant, hosting monthly craft … Reprints & Permissions 5/5