Koum loathed surveillance, which
- he grew up with in the U.S.S.R., and advertising, which he grew up mostly without. He kept a pair of walkie-talkies on his desk, to remind him of the simplicity of what he was trying to create, alongside a note written by Acton: "No ads! No games! No gimmicks!" When Koum thought of a person's online con-nections, he pictured his grandfather, in Ukraine, leafing through his address . book. "That's the most intimate social network,"he said. "And it's already there on your phone."