Facebook at 10: How it grew from a social network to a social phenomenon
The Facebook Mafia?
On May 18, 2012, Facebook became a public company. While a series of unfortunate events caused its stock to have a disappointing performance, it has slowly risen and at the time of publication it is at $67.09, a 76 percent increase from its IPO price of $38. In its 2013 annual earnings report, the company revealed that it had generated more than $7.8 billion in revenue, a 55 percent year-over-year increase. Zuckerberg said in a statement that “It was a great end to the year for Facebook. We’re looking forward to our next decade and to helping connect the rest of the world.”
While we’ve been talking about the technology Facebook has created, we haven’t spoken about the people who have split away from the company and started their own ventures. There are those who have gone on to launch their own startups, while others have become venture capitalists. It’s logical to see long-time employees going out on their own and creating companies themselves, but is this the Facebook version of the so-called PayPal mafia?
Here’s a look at a few notable companies and ventures that were started by former Facebook employees over the past decade:
Dustin Moskovitz is one of the co-founders of Facebook and served as the company’s first Chief Technology Officer (CTO). In October 2008, he left the company in order to launch Asana, a productivity management service that he founded alongside another former Facebooker Justin Rosenstein.
Chamath Palihapitiya joined Facebook in 2006 after stints at AOL and Mayfield Fund. During his tenure, he helped oversee the social networking company’s mobile and international programs. An investor on the side, he eventually left Facebook in 2011 to start The Social+Capital Partnership where he invested in companies like Yammer and SecondMarket. He is also one of the owners of the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Golden State Warriors.
Prior to the formation of Path, Dave Morin was the senior platform manager at Facebook where he is credited with creating the Facebook Platform and Connect (now known as Facebook Login). The development of a platform enabled third-party services and applications to leverage a user’s social graph and help make content more relevant to them. Connect helped give users a single login authentication protocol so they didn’t have to worry about trying to remember passwords and could connect their profile data with supported applications. Morin left in 2010 after four years to start Path.
Adam D’Angelo was another early Facebook employee and served as its CTO and vice president of engineering. He left the company in 2008, when it was reported that he had been feeling “tired and burnt out.” About a year later, he teamed with former Facebooker Charlie Cheever (who worked with Dave Morin on Facebook Connect) to launch the Q&A social network Quora.
Of course, the Facebook mafia must include Sean Parker, the co-founder of Napster and the first president of Zuckerberg’s company. He spent a year in that role helping the company raise money, including from venture capitalist Peter Thiel. After parting ways with Facebook, Parker went on to make investments in companies like Spotify, WillCall, and Votizen. He also launched Airtime, which hasn’t proved successful.
Steve Chen spent a few months working at Facebook as a senior software engineer in 2005. He left in order to start a video service called YouTube (you may have heard of it), working alongside Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim.
Chris Hughes is another Facebook co-founder who served as a spokesperson for the company. He went on to join Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign and helped coordinate the online initiatives — a movement which is widely believed to have helped Obama’s election. Afterwards, he went on to be the Entrepreneur in Residence at General Catalyst Partners before eventually purchasing a majority stake in The New Republic magazine.
Randi Zuckerberg served as Facebook’s director of market development and also as its spokeswoman. During her tenure, she organized partnerships with ABC News for the 2008 presidential primaries of both the Republican and Democratic parties. She also integrated Facebook with CNN’s Inauguration Day program. She is the elder sister of Mark Zuckerberg and left the company in 2011 to start a new firm called Zuckerberg Media, which has produced shows for The Clinton Global Initiative, Cirque du Soleil, Conde Nast, and Bravo (including that short-lived series “Start-Ups: Silicon Valley“).
Bret Taylor joined Facebook by way of acquisition of his startup FriendFeed in 2009. He served as CTO where he oversaw the development of the social network’s platform and mobile products. He left in 2012 to launch Quip, a office productivity software platform.
Next: The teenage years of Facebook