Henry Swieca to Jan Koum: Celebrate success

Sometimes it’s nice to stop and pause and celebrate success.

Henry Swieca is a humble man, a child of Holocaust survivors who grew up in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City. From these very humble beginnings, the man built a tremendous business in financial investing, whereby he has achieved placement on the Forbes list as one of the richest people in the world. Perhaps more impressively, he is involved with countless philanthropic causes, including numerous civic and religious organizations in the United States and abroad, including The Frisch School, the National World War II Museum, among others.

His parents died when he was very young, and he was forced to pay for his own education, as well as his younger brother. As Henry Swieca notes, he found success by working very hard and being a proud member of his community. Faith helped him — and now, many years later, today Henry Swieca was appointed to the Columbia Business School Board of Overseers.

Awesome.

Another inspirational story involves a household product everyone knows – WhatsApp, which just sold to Facebook for $19 billion dollars. Jan Koum, the company’s founder is a Russian speaking Jew, who was born in the Ukraine and immigrated to America at the age of 16. Through hard work and taking many chances, Koum built this amazing business – and signed the deal to sign the company standing right outside the government office where he and his mother once stood on line to get food stamps.

So many great success stories. Celebrate success stories.