If you were asked who founded Facebook, one of the biggest and most-used social networking sites nowadays, you instantly would answer Mark Zuckerberg. But did you know that there were other Harvard students who successfully launched the platform?
Before Kylie Jenner was bestowed with the youngest self-made billionaire title, Mark used to hold the crown – after all, he achieved the feat at 23 (as for the makeup mogul, she had done that by 21, no biggie). The 35-year-old and his wife, Priscilla Chan are also philanthropists, just like Bill and Melinda Gates.
In short, we know a lot about Mark. But what about Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes? What happened to them after they left Facebook operations with the Harvard dropout?
Eduardo Saverin
Unlike Mark, Eduardo graduated from the prestigious Ivy League institution in 2006. He was on board the company at the start of its success, holding the business manager and chief financial officer positions at the time.
To put it simply, Eduardo handled the business side of the company while Mark was in charge of product development. Things went downhill when the 37-year-old, who is now worth $12 billion, decided not to join the team in the Palo Alto headquarters and focused on another startup on the East Coast.
Long story short, Eduardo felt he was being left out, he put Facebook’s bank accounts on hold, Mark decreased his co-founder’s stakes, the business manager sued the company and vice versa, and things ended with a settlement. Now, the former member of the team is in Singapore after investing in Anideo.
Chris Hughes
Unlike Eduardo, Chris followed Mark in Palo Alto in 2004 and two years later, he went back to graduate with flying colors from Harvard University. After finishing his schooling, he worked with Facebook again for three years, earning him a whopping $500 million.
When he left the social networking site in 2007, he worked for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, specifically leading the social media team that was highly credited as one of the factors that made the candidate win. Five years later, he bought The New Republic and now he heads a social networking app called Juno.
Dustin Moskovitz
Among the three on this list, Dustin is the only one who left school to pursue Facebook alongside Mark. The design you see now is pretty much based on the early creations of this co-founder, who, despite leaving the company years ago, still has a 3-percent stake.
Dustin founded Asana, which was dubbed as the Facebook version for work. Despite the similarities, he and Mark have remained friends throughout the years.
