Dustin Moskovitz

Cofounder of Facebook

• Born: May 22, 1984
• Place of Birth: Gainesville, Florida

Primary Company/Organization: Facebook

Introduction

Dustin Moskovitz is one of the cofounders of Facebook, one of the world's most prominent social media networks and the focus of considerable attention. He left Harvard University in 2004 after two years majoring in economics in order to move to California and build Facebook as a company with Mark Zuckerberg and other cofounders. Moskovitz acted as chief technology officer and development strategist and later vice president of engineering. In 2008, he left Facebook to start a new company, Asana, which focused on task-management and productivity software for companies. He retained a holding in Facebook, and by 2011, he was considered the world's youngest self-made billionaire.

Early Life

Dustin Moskovitz was born in Gainesville, Florida, on May 22, 1984, and attended Vanguard High School in Ocala, Florida, where he undertook the international baccalaureate program. He had no particular interest in computers or the internet and enrolled in Harvard University to study economics. His roommate, Mark Zuckerberg, and he were soon working together to create the prototype of Facebook, which was then designed to be a means of making contact with other Harvard University students. Moskovitz began to teach himself the computer programming skills necessary for this work as he continued.

Within two years the site had grown popular, and Moskovitz and Zuckerberg, with some other collaborators, decided to leave Harvard and move to Palo Alto, California, and work on Facebook on a full-time basis. Their initial plan was to return to Harvard in a year. However, the rapid success of Facebook meant they did not return.

Life's Work

Moskovitz's prowess as a strategist and programmer developed in line with the scope and sophistication of Facebook as a whole. The company opened for operations in February 2004, and the social media site reached 100 million users by 2008, when Moskovitz left to start his own venture. (It would eventually grow to more than 2 billion users.) Facebook's services in the early years were rudimentary compared to the later versions. Additions were made both through internal developments and by acquiring technology from external companies or buying those companies outright. As the leading technologist and eventually engineering vice president, Moskovitz was involved in both means of improving the service. The results proved hugely popular, with people quickly taking to the opportunities to make contact with friends and family members, as well as others, by exchanging information and photographs with each other digitally.

At first, Facebook was limited to Harvard University users. It spread to other universities, then to high schools across the Northeast, and then the rest of the world by 2006. Users were required to be thirteen years old to join and must possess a genuine e-mail address. However, it is widely established that these requirements are not difficult to meet (or appear to meet). From the beginning, Facebook faced challenges in curating appropriate content and related security issues.

Moskovitz played a major role in developing the basic structure of Facebook. The site revolves around users managing a personal profile and network of contacts, with groups and various messaging options allowing the sharing of information. Over time, the site incorporated many other services, many developed by third parties, ranging from built-in games to online shopping. Users can adjust privacy settings to determine what information is shared with others. Yet many users were casual about their use of the service and did not always appreciate or modulate the amount of information about themselves that they made available. Further complicating the issue was the fact that privacy settings were not always clear. Controversy over online privacy became a notable issue in Facebook's early days. However, this did not stop the platform's rapid growth.

In 2007, technology giant Microsoft purchased a 1.6 percent share in Facebook for $250 million, both as an investment and as a means of shaping the placement of advertisements on the system. The sale further boosted the social media site's profile and pushed the company toward solidified financial success. With Facebook valued at approximately $15 billion following Microsoft's investment, Moskovitz and the other founders reached a new level of wealth.

Despite Facebook's steady rise, in 2008 Moskovitz announced that he was leaving the company to start his own venture, Asana, along with Justin Rosenstein, who had joined Facebook the year before after working as a software engineer at Google. Moskovitz explained his decision in lifestyle terms: He wanted the experience of establishing a start-up company and the opportunity to reinvent himself as a person independent of Facebook who could operate as a philanthropic investor and entrepreneur as well as a company executive—all the while continuing the low-key lifestyle and personal freedoms to which he aspired. However, he retained a significant stake in Facebook, which would be the ongoing basis for his fortune. Forbes ranked him as the world's youngest self-made billionaire in 2011. Moskovitz reportedly sold $143 million worth of Facebook shares in 2012.

Moskovitz's company, Asana, was named after a term associated with yoga. The company sought to provide task-management software following nontraditional lines to enhance productivity and creativity. Its principal product was a form of collaborative software aimed at improving the productivity of people in the workplace. By late 2018, Asana was valued at about $1.5 billion. The company earned attention in 2019 when Moskovitz announced employees would no longer use email for internal communications, reflecting a dedication to Asana's own products for more efficient collaboration. When he took Asana public in 2020, he held about 36 percent of the company's shares. Moskovitz began buying shares of the company, and by mid-2023, he was the majority owner with more than 51 percent of outstanding stock. By that time, Moskovitz's net worth was more than $12 billion.

Moskovitz was interested in artificial intelligence (AI) and its possible impact on human life. His philanthropic foundation donated $30 million to OpenAI, a startup venture, in 2017. Asana incorporated generative AI features to its products, including some powered by OpenAI's models. In 2023, Moskovitz and many other entrepreneurs signed a statement from the Center for AI Safety expressing the need to ensure AI does not become a threat to humankind.

Personal Life

Moskovitz placed great importance on the personal freedom of software creators in the workplace and embodied the dressed-down informality this implies. At Asana, he introduced initiatives allowing employees to enjoy regular yoga sessions and use funds dedicated to improving their workplace equipment. Moskovitz also built a reputation for philanthropy, and in 2010 he signed the Giving Pledge, in which wealthy figures agreed to donate the bulk of their fortunes to charity. He and his wife, Cari Tuna, a graduate of Yale and a former technology journalist for The Wall Street Journal, cofounded the philanthropic foundation Good Ventures in 2011, with Tuna running the organization. Among their major efforts were donations to charities dealing with malaria and poverty.

One of Asana's corporate values is "chillness," and this seems to reflect Moskovitz's personality, which has been described as sedate and almost taciturn. He maintained a comparatively low public profile, but was known to support Democratic Party politicians. He vocally opposed Republican Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.

Bibliography

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"Dustin Moskovitz." Bloomberg Billionaires Index, 8 Apr. 2019, www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/dustin-a-moskovitz/. Accessed 15 Oct. 2024.

"Dustin Moskovitz, Facebook Billionaire, Shuns Luxury for Startup Life." 30 Apr. 2012. CNBC. Web. 1 May 2012.

Fuchs, Christian. "An Alternative View of Privacy on Facebook," Information 2.1 (2011): 140–65. Print.

Kirkpatrick, David. "The Facebook Effect." The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World. New York: Simon, 2010. Print.

Mezrich, Ben. The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook; A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal. New York: Doubleday, 2009. Print.

Novet, Jordan. "Why Billionaire Dustin Moskovitz Keeps Buying Up Shares of His Software Company Asana." CNBC, 24 June 2023, www.cnbc.com/2023/06/24/asanas-dustin-moskovitz-is-bullish-on-AI-but-concerned-about-risks.html. Accessed 15 Oct. 2024.

Vance, Ashlee, and Douglas MacMillan. "Asana: Dustin and Justin's Quest for Flow," 2 Nov. 2011. Bloomberg Businessweek. Web. 1 July 2012.

Westlake, T. J. "Friend Me If You Facebook: Generation Y and Performative Surveillance." TDR: The Drama Review 52.4 (2008): 21–40. Print.