Tech news, a fresh look at the future from the eyes of Facebook creators.
As Facebook Inc. approaches the $10 billion initial public stock offering mark, it is the former company insiders that have attracted a great deal of attention, as they continue their diligent efforts to create the next generation of businesses from Silicon Valley.
Currently, they’re working together to accomplish this goal. They include the co-founder of Facebook, Dustin Moskovitz, who, at 27 years, is the youngest billionaire in the world. He is working with Justin Rosenstein, also formerly from Facebook, on a project called Asana. This is a form of online software that will give people a more effective way of working together.
Behind another project called Quora are another team of Facebook alumni, including the first chief technology officer of the company, Adam D’Angelo, and Charlie Cheever. This project is designed to help people to find information more easily.
Former exec from Facebook, Matt Cohler is now working with Dave Morin, among others, in his new venture capitalist company. Morin is also running Path, a mobile social network.
According to 31 year old Kevin Colleran, the first ad sales rep at Facebook, who is now an investor who doles out both advice and cash, “Very few people get to change the world with their friends. Now we are setting out to do it again.”
Whether or not any of these projects will be successful has yet to be determined. However, these former Facebook team members – the majority of whom are still in their 20s – are setting their sights for further successes that will avoid the fate of the thousands of crash-and-burn stories that litter Silicon Valley’s history.
These individuals do have a significant advantage over many, in that they are already very well connected with the people whom they need to know in Silicon Valley in order to make a hit. What all too many gifted researchers and innovators have discovered is that it doesn’t just take genius to achieve success, but also the right social connections.
According to Paul Saffo, a Silicon Valley futurist, “Innovation is an irrational act, and the only way to get through that irrationality is to surround yourself with other people as crazy and obsessed with changing the world as you are.”