Dustin Moskovitz
Encyclopedia
Dustin Moskovitz is an American internet entrepreneur
Internet entrepreneur
An Internet entrepreneur is an entrepreneur that applies innovation to create new businesses on the Internet.Internet entrepreneurs are part of the more general category of digital entrepreneurs...

 who co-founded the social networking website Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...

 along with Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is an American computer programmer and Internet entrepreneur. He is best known for co-creating the social networking site Facebook, of which he is chief executive and president...

, Eduardo Saverin
Eduardo Saverin
Eduardo P. Saverin is a Brazilian-born American internet entrepreneur and investor. Saverin is best known for co-founding Facebook, along with Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes...

 and Chris Hughes. Moskovitz owns a 6% share of Facebook. He is also a co-founder and the CEO of Asana
Asana (web application)
Asana is a "collaborative information manager" Web 2.0 application designed to streamline business communication and facilitate workplace efficiency. It is being developed by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and engineering manager Justin Rosenstein, who left Facebook together to pursue the...

. Moskovitz is Jewish. http://www.icsresources.org/content/curricula/JewsInAmericanHistoryTeachersGuide.pdf

In March of 2011 Forbes ranked Moskovitz as the world's youngest billionaire on the basis of his share in Facebook. He is eight days younger than Mark Zuckerberg.

In September 2010, Forbes 400 estimated that his net worth had soared over the previous year to $1.4 billion as the value of his share in Facebook increased with the rising valuation of the company based on recent investment valuing it at $26 billion.

Background and education

Moskovitz was born in Gainesville, Florida
Gainesville, Florida
Gainesville is the largest city in, and the county seat of, Alachua County, Florida, United States as well as the principal city of the Gainesville, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area . The preliminary 2010 Census population count for Gainesville is 124,354. Gainesville is home to the sixth...

 and grew up in Ocala, Florida
Ocala, Florida
Ocala is a city in Marion County, Florida. As of 2007, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau was 53,491. It is the county seat of Marion County, and the principal city of the Ocala, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area, which had an estimated 2007 population of 324,857.-History:Ocala...

 and attended Vanguard High School
Vanguard High School
Vanguard High School is one of eight high schools in Marion County, Florida. The school serves the northeast area of Ocala, Florida. Vanguard offers the International Baccalaureate program for students, which accepts pupils from outside districts and makes up about 25% of the student population....

, graduating from the IB Diploma Programme
IB Diploma Programme
The International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme is a two-year educational programme for students aged 16–19that provides an internationally accepted qualification for entry into higher education, and is recognised by universities worldwide. It was developed in the early to mid-1960s in Geneva by...

. Moskovitz attended Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 as an economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...

 major for two years before he moved in with Mark Zuckerberg to Palo Alto. He went to work full-time on Facebook.

Facebook

Four people, three of whom were roommates — Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is an American computer programmer and Internet entrepreneur. He is best known for co-creating the social networking site Facebook, of which he is chief executive and president...

, Eduardo Saverin
Eduardo Saverin
Eduardo P. Saverin is a Brazilian-born American internet entrepreneur and investor. Saverin is best known for co-founding Facebook, along with Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes...

, Chris Hughes, and Moskovitz — founded Facebook in their Harvard University dorm room in February 2004. Originally called thefacebook.com, it was intended as an online directory of all Harvard's students to help residential students identify members of other residences. In June 2004, Zuckerberg and Moskovitz took a year off from Harvard and moved Facebook's base of operations to Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. The city shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. It is...

, hiring eight other employees in the process. They were later joined by Sean Parker
Sean Parker
Sean Parker is an American technology businessman and entrepreneur. He co-founded Napster, Plaxo, Causes, and Airtime, and was Facebook's founding president. His net worth is estimated at $2.1 billion.-Early life:...

, who needed a place to stay.

At Facebook, Moskovitz was the company's first chief technology officer and then vice president of engineering; he led the technical staff and oversaw the major architecture of the site, as well as being responsible for the company’s mobile strategy and development.

After Facebook

On October 3, 2008, Moskovitz announced that he was leaving Facebook to form a new company called Asana
Asana (web application)
Asana is a "collaborative information manager" Web 2.0 application designed to streamline business communication and facilitate workplace efficiency. It is being developed by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and engineering manager Justin Rosenstein, who left Facebook together to pursue the...

 with Justin Rosenstein
Justin Rosenstein
Justin Rosenstein is the co-creator of the collaborative software company Asana along with Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz.-Personal life:...

, an engineering manager at Facebook who had formerly worked at Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...

 and whom Moskovitz had recruited. Their departures were among a series by Facebook executives at that time. In response, Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is an American computer programmer and Internet entrepreneur. He is best known for co-creating the social networking site Facebook, of which he is chief executive and president...

, Facebook's CEO
Chief executive officer
A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...

, released a statement, saying, "Dustin has always had Facebook's best interest at heart and will always be someone I turn to for advice."

They planned to create a company that, in their words at the time, "will be to your work life what Facebook.com is to your social life."

In November 2009 Moskovitz and Rosenstein closed a $9 million round of funding for their new company from Benchmark Capital
Benchmark Capital
Benchmark Capital is a venture capital firm responsible for the early stage funding of some very successful startups. In 1997, the firm invested $6.7 million in eBay, which became worth more than $5 billion by the spring of 1999. Other high-profile investments include Ariba, Juniper Networks, Red...

 and Andreessen Horowitz
Andreessen Horowitz
Andreessen Horowitz is a venture capital firm founded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. The company's headquarters is in Menlo Park, California.The venture capital fund was started in June 2009 with an initial capital of $300 million....

, following $1.2 million of angel investment
Angel investor
An angel investor or angel is an affluent individual who provides capital for a business start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity...

 the previous spring from investors including Ron Conway
Ron Conway
Ron Conway is an American angel investor, often described as one of the "super angels". Conway is recognized as a strong networker and is based in Silicon Valley.-Early career:...

, Peter Thiel
Peter Thiel
Peter Andreas Thiel is an American business magnate, venture capitalist, and hedge fund manager. With Elon Musk and Max Levchin, Thiel co-founded PayPal and was its CEO...

, Mitch Kapor
Mitch Kapor
Mitchell David Kapor is the founder of Lotus Development Corporation and the designer of Lotus 1-2-3. He is also a co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and was the first chair of the Mozilla Foundation...

, Owen van Natta
Owen Van Natta
Owen Van Natta is currently the Executive Vice President of Business at Zynga, an internet company that makes online social games. In this position, Van Natta is responsible for the company’s revenue strategy, corporate development, international expansion and brand. Prior to officially joining...

, Sean Parker
Sean Parker
Sean Parker is an American technology businessman and entrepreneur. He co-founded Napster, Plaxo, Causes, and Airtime, and was Facebook's founding president. His net worth is estimated at $2.1 billion.-Early life:...

 and Jed Stremel. The new company received some attention for giving its engineers $10,000 to spend on improving the equipment at their desks.

On February 7, 2011, Moskovitz and Rosenstein presented Asana
Asana (web application)
Asana is a "collaborative information manager" Web 2.0 application designed to streamline business communication and facilitate workplace efficiency. It is being developed by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and engineering manager Justin Rosenstein, who left Facebook together to pursue the...

, a software application designed to improve the way people collaborate in groups and manage projects. Asana organised work flow within a news-feed like layout and shared with many of the products created by former employees at Facebook the attempt to address social interaction online. It is powered by Luna, a Javascript
JavaScript
JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....

-based web framework developed by the company.

Moskovitz was the biggest angel investor in the mobile photo-sharing site, Path, run by another former member of Facebook, David Morin. It was reported that Moskovitz's advice was important in persuading Morin to reject a $100 million offer for the company from Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...

, made in February 2011.

Media depictions

Moskovitz is played in the film The Social Network
The Social Network
The Social Network is a 2010 American drama film directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin. Adapted from Ben Mezrich's 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires, the film portrays the founding of social networking website Facebook and the resulting lawsuits...

by actor Joseph Mazzello
Joseph Mazzello
Joseph Francis Mazzello III is an American actor who is best known for his roles as Tim Murphy in Jurassic Park, Eugene Sledge in the HBO miniseries The Pacific, and Dustin Moskovitz in The Social Network....

. Responding to a question on Quora
Quora
Quora is a question-and-answer website created, edited and organized by its community of users. The site was founded in June 2009, launched in private beta in December 2009, and made available to the public on June 21, 2010....

, Moskovitz said that the film "emphasizes things that didn't matter (like the Winklevosses
Winklevoss twins
The Winklevoss twins are American rowers and internet entrepreneurs, Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss. They competed in the men's pair rowing event at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. They are known for co-founding HarvardConnection along with Harvard classmate Divya Narendra...

, who I've still never even met and had no part in the work we did to create the site over the past 6 years) and leaves out things that really did (like the many other people in our lives at the time, who supported us in innumerable ways)".

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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