Koob Predates TikTok

Shaan tells a story about a Russian entrepreneur who created a TikTok-like platform years before TikTok existed.

"There's this one Russian guy who started this social network called Koob. Koob was TikTok before TikTok - it was amazing, only in Russia and Ukraine. I only found out about it because I randomly met up with this group from Ukraine that was touring Silicon Valley. I was like 'Hey come to our office, I'll give you a talk.'

At the end I asked them 'What's the hot shit in Ukraine that I should be knowing about?' They're like 'This thing called Koob is blowing up.' This was like 2 years before TikTok.

He built that thing - it didn't end up going huge, I think because of other reasons with Russia and the way they control things. Last week I checked in, I was like 'What's that guy Anton doing?' Of course he's doing the craziest stuff. He's now trying to change the way people eat fruit. He's like 'I'm trying to change the way people eat mangoes. The way Americans eat mangoes is terrible.'

He has some process that cuts the juiciest part of a mango into a perfect little ball. His mission is to make fruit more fun and delicious to eat by cutting it better, packaging it better, storing it a certain way. I'm like 'Of course you are - of course the guy who created TikTok 2 years before TikTok is now gonna change the way I eat mango.' He's gonna just keep doing interesting things - he can't not."