Yes. The pool takes 5% of profits to cover operating costs. Your initial deposit amount is never touched.
Yes! In fact, you probably should. Koinos mining is very accessible. You might even be able to use a computer you already have lying around which would make your costs effectively zero. You can find instructions in the official Koinos documentation.
We are Luke Willis and Kui He. Two USA-based dudes who have been involved with Koinos since well before mainnet. Luke handles development. Kui handles operations.