A Jan Koum anecdote

I never met Jan Koum during my 8 years in Yahoo. I met Brian Acton during his days with Yahoo! Shopping (or was it Yahoo! Finance?) There’s a funny anecdote I remember about Jan though.

The year was 1999. Squarely in the middle of the dot-com boom days.

Yahoo’s offices were in 3420 Central Expressway, Santa Clara.

The cafeteria used to serve catered food, partially subsidized by Yahoo. The food wasn’t great, it wasn’t bad either.

One day, somebody discovered a bandaid in one of the dishes. It was promptly reported and pilloried on devel-random@.

A few hours later, an innocuous email was posted by Jan Koum. It read thus:

Has somebody seen my bandaid? I’ve grown quite attached to it and I miss it dearly.

Congrats Jan and Brian!