Dustin Moskovitz
Born
Dustin Aaron Moskovitz

(1984-05-22) May 22, 1984 (age 40)
Gainesville, Florida, U.S.
EducationHarvard University (dropped out)
Known for
Spouse
​
(m. 2013)​

Dustin Aaron Moskovitz[1] (/ˈmɒskəvɪts/; born May 22, 1984)[2] is an American billionaire internet entrepreneur who co-founded Facebook, Inc. (now known as Meta Platforms) with Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum and Chris Hughes.[3] In 2008, he left Facebook to co-found Asana[4] with Justin Rosenstein. In March 2011, Forbes reported Moskovitz to be the youngest self-made billionaire in the world, on the basis of his then 2.34% share in Facebook.[5] As of June 2024, his net worth is estimated at US$23 billion by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.[6]

Early life

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Moskovitz, who is Jewish,[7] was born on May 22, 1984 in Gainesville, Florida and grew up in Ocala, Florida.[8] He attended Vanguard High School, graduating from the IB Diploma Program.[9][10] Moskovitz attended Harvard University as an economics major for two years before he moved with Mark Zuckerberg to Palo Alto, California, in order to work full-time on Facebook.[11]

Career

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Facebook (2004–2008)

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Four people, three of whom were roommates—Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Chris Hughes, and Dustin Moskovitz—founded Facebook in their Harvard University dorm room in February 2004. Originally called thefacebook.com,[12] it was intended as an online directory of all Harvard's students to help residential students identify members of other residences.[3][13] In June 2004, Zuckerberg, Hughes and Moskovitz took a year off from Harvard and moved Facebook's base of operations to Palo Alto, and hired eight employees.[14] They were later joined by Sean Parker. At Facebook, Moskovitz was the company's first chief technology officer and then vice president of engineering.[15]

Asana (2008–present)

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On October 3, 2008, Moskovitz announced that he was leaving Facebook to form a new company called Asana with Justin Rosenstein, an engineering manager at Facebook. Asana's mission is to improve the efficiency of office workers, providing them with a tool to manage and track projects and tasks. Moskowitz has remained CEO, with Rosenstein now serving as board member and advisor.[16] In September 2020, Asana went public at a market value of about $5.5 billion in a direct listing.[17]

Philanthropy

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Moskovitz speaking at the Web Summit 2017

Moskovitz co-founded the philanthropic organization Good Ventures with his girlfriend (and now wife) Cari Tuna in 2011.[18] In June 2012, Good Ventures announced a close partnership with charity evaluator GiveWell. Both organizations "are aiming to do as much good as possible" and thereby align with the goals of effective altruism.[19][20] Good Ventures has donated approximately $100 million from 2011 onward to GiveWell top charities Against Malaria Foundation, GiveDirectly, Schistosomiasis Control Initiative, and Deworm the World Initiative, as well as standout charities and other effective altruist organizations.[21]

The collaboration with GiveWell led to a spinoff called the Open Philanthropy Project, whose goal is to figure out the best possible way to use large sums of money (starting with Moskovitz's multi-billion-dollar fortune) to do the best.[22][23][24] Renamed to just "Open Philanthropy", it has since become a separate organization, and continuously increases its annual giving, having made over $170 million in grants in 2018.[25] Moskowitz is a supporter of using rationality to guide his decision-making.[26] In 2023, Moskovitz through Open Philanthropy donated $900,000 to scientists in Africa, Asia, and South America to further study the impacts of climate change.[27]

Moskovitz and Tuna are also the youngest couple to sign Bill Gates and Warren Buffett's Giving Pledge, which commits billionaires to give away most of their wealth in the form of philanthropy.[28] Dustin is also a signatory of The Giving What We Can Pledge.[29]

Politics

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Moskovitz has voted for the Democratic Party candidates in each election in which he has voted, but he wrote: "Though we've voted for the Democratic nominee each of the times we've cast a ballot, we've considered ourselves independent thinkers who respect candidates and positions from both sides of the aisle."[30] Prior to their donation for the 2016 election cycle, Moskovitz and Tuna had donated roughly $10,000 over their lifetime to federal candidates, most of it to Sean Eldridge, the husband of Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes.[31]

Moskovitz, through his support of Open Philanthropy, has contributed to California YIMBY. Open Philanthropy, mainly funded by Moskovitz and his wife, has donated around $500,000 to the cause.[32] Open Philanthropy also contributed $2 million to the New York City based YIMBY group Open New York.[33]

For the 2016 United States presidential election, Moskovitz announced that he and his wife would donate $20 million to support Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party nominee, arguing that the dangers of a Donald Trump presidency are significant, and that they were making their donation despite being skeptical of allowing large donors to influence election cycles through money.[34] The New York Times quoted Moskovitz's blog post on the subject: "The Republican Party, and Donald Trump in particular, is running on a zero-sum vision, stressing a false contest between their constituency and the rest of the world."[30][31] This made him the third-largest donor in the 2016 campaigns.[34]

For the 2020 United States presidential election, Moskovitz donated $24 million to support the Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden.[35] Asana's own listed contributions for the election cycle, which are almost all directly from Moskovitz and his wife Cari Tuna, reached around $45 million.[36] This makes Asana the second largest contributor to Biden's presidential campaign after Bloomberg LP.

Other business activities

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Moskovitz was also the biggest angel investor in the mobile photo-sharing site Path, run by another former member of Facebook, David Morin. It was reported[37] that Moskovitz's advice was important in persuading Morin to reject a $100 million offer for the company from Google, made in February 2011.[38] In 2020, Moskovitz led a $40 million dollar Series D funding round for fusion power start-up Helion Energy.[39]

Personal life

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Moskovitz met Cari Tuna on a blind date, and they married in 2013.[40][41]

He and Tuna attend Burning Man regularly, and Moskovitz has written about his reasons for doing so.[42][43][44]

Media depictions

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Moskovitz is played in the movie The Social Network by actor Joseph Mazzello. Responding to a question on Quora, Moskovitz said that the film "emphasizes things that didn't matter (like the Winklevoss brothers, whom 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 did (like the many other people in our lives at the time, who supported us in innumerable ways)."[45]

References

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  1. ^ Alba, Alejandro (August 25, 2015). "Facebook CEO tops list of the 20 wealthiest people under 35". NY Daily News. Archived from the original on August 26, 2018. Retrieved December 10, 2016.
  2. ^ Pilkington, Ed (March 10, 2011). "Forbes Rich List: Facebook Six Stake Their Claims". The Guardian. UK. Archived from the original on August 26, 2018. Retrieved March 30, 2011.
  3. ^ a b "Company Timeline". Facebook. Retrieved October 3, 2008.
  4. ^ Rosenstein, Justin."Reply on Quora to: Who is the CEO of Asana?", Quora, February 8, 2011. Retrieved February 15, 2011.
  5. ^ Zoe Fox (March 10, 2011). "Forbes's Youngest Billionaire: Facebook Co-Founder Dustin Moskovitz Edges Out Mark Zuckerberg". Time. Archived from the original on December 26, 2018. Retrieved December 14, 2014.
  6. ^ "Bloomberg billionaires index: Dustin Moskovitz". Bloomberg. Retrieved June 2, 2024.
  7. ^ Jacob Berkman (December 10, 2010). "Zuckerberg among nine new Jewish individuals and families to take the Giving Pledge". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Archived from the original on September 21, 2013. Retrieved September 19, 2013.
  8. ^ "America's Youngest Billionaires". Forbes. October 6, 2010. Archived from the original on August 12, 2017.
  9. ^ Agarwal, Udit (June 6, 2020). "Dustin Moskovitz Biography: Success Story of Facebook Co-founder". Vyapaar Jagat. Retrieved December 7, 2022.
  10. ^ "Stories of 2018 DP graduates and how they learned to make sense of the world". International Baccalaureate. July 10, 2018. Archived from the original on January 25, 2021. Retrieved September 7, 2023. It is a qualification which Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, Marina Catena, head of the UN's World Food Programme, and Dustin Moskovitz, Facebook co-founder, have in common.
  11. ^ "XPRIZE Foundation Bio – Dustin Moskovitz". XPRIZE. Archived from the original on December 3, 2022. Retrieved December 7, 2022.
  12. ^ Phillips, Sarah (July 25, 2007). "A brief history of Facebook". the Guardian. Archived from the original on December 26, 2018. Retrieved March 20, 2018.
  13. ^ Rosen, Ellen (May 27, 2005). "Student's Start-Up Draws Attention and $13 Million". The New York Times. Archived from the original on September 24, 2014. Retrieved March 1, 2018.
  14. ^ "Finding Friends with Facebook" Archived March 1, 2014, at the Wayback Machine, Wired, July 3, 2005. Retrieved February 15, 2011.
  15. ^ "Dustin Moskovitz – Forbes Profile". Forbes. March 2, 2020. Archived from the original on August 26, 2017. Retrieved February 7, 2021.
  16. ^ "Asana Leadership – Meet Our Leaders • Asana". Asana.
  17. ^ "Asana valued at $5.5 billion after direct listing debut". Fortune.
  18. ^ Tuna, Cari; Moskovitz, Dustin (2012). "Vision & Values | Good Ventures". Good Ventures. Archived from the original on August 24, 2017. Retrieved August 24, 2017.
  19. ^ Holden (June 28, 2012). "GiveWell and Good Ventures". Archived from the original on July 15, 2015. Retrieved June 28, 2012.
  20. ^ "They made a fortune in Silicon Valley. Now they're giving most of it away". Washington Post. December 26, 2014. Archived from the original on April 25, 2019. Retrieved June 1, 2017.
  21. ^ Ventures, Good. "Grants Database | Good Ventures". Good Ventures. Archived from the original on August 31, 2018. Retrieved April 4, 2017.[non-primary source needed]
  22. ^ Matthews, Dylan (April 24, 2015). "You have $8 billion. You want to do as much good as possible. What do you do?". Vox. Archived from the original on August 24, 2017. Retrieved March 19, 2016.
  23. ^ David Callahan (December 14, 2015). "How Does an Emerging "Army" of Tech Donors Think? Ask This Guy". Inside Philanthropy. Archived from the original on March 7, 2016. Retrieved March 20, 2016.
  24. ^ Nicole Bennett; Ashley Carter; Romney Resney & Wendy Woods (February 10, 2016). "bcg.perspectives – How Tech Entrepreneurs Are Disrupting Philanthropy". The Boston Consulting Group. Archived from the original on July 27, 2017. Retrieved March 20, 2016.
  25. ^ Karnofsky, Holden (April 15, 2019). "Our Progress in 2018 and Plans for 2019". Open Philanthropy Project. Archived from the original on June 17, 2019. Retrieved June 17, 2019.[non-primary source needed]
  26. ^ Moskovitz, Dustin (April 18, 2021). "Rationality Mindfulness 🤝 Egolessness". Twitter.
  27. ^ Clifford, Catherine (February 8, 2023). "Facebook co-founder Moskovitz funds research into cooling the Earth with sunlight reflection". CNBC. Retrieved April 7, 2023.
  28. ^ "Silicon Valley Billionaire Dustin Moskovitz and Cari Tuna on the Reasoned Art of Giving". Jewish Business News. January 2, 2015. Archived from the original on August 24, 2017. Retrieved April 9, 2015.
  29. ^ "Dustin Moskovitz sharing his pledge on Twitter". Twitter. Retrieved April 10, 2023.
  30. ^ a b "Compelled to Act. We're committing $20M to help Democrats in the 2016 election". Medium. September 8, 2016. Archived from the original on May 29, 2019. Retrieved September 22, 2016.
  31. ^ a b Confessore, Nicholas (September 9, 2016). "Dustin Moskovitz, Facebook Co-Founder, Pledges $20 Million to Aid Democrats". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 29, 2019. Retrieved September 22, 2016.
  32. ^ Bronstein, Zelda. "California's 'Yimbys'". Dollars & Sense. Economic Affairs Bureau. Retrieved March 13, 2021.
  33. ^ Elstein, Aaron. "Crain's New York".
  34. ^ a b "Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz commits $20M to help beat Trump". CNN. September 9, 2016. Archived from the original on September 23, 2016. Retrieved September 22, 2016.
  35. ^ Hartmans, Avery (November 3, 2020). "Some of tech's biggest names donated millions of dollars ahead of the 2020 election, and most of it went to Democrats". Business Insider. Retrieved December 20, 2020.
  36. ^ "Top Contributors, federal election data for Joe Biden, 2020 cycle". OpenSecrets.
  37. ^ Lacy, Sarah."Inside the DNA of the Facebook Mafia" Archived July 30, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, Techcrunch, February 13, 2011. Retrieved February 15, 2011.
  38. ^ Arrington, Mike. "Google Tried To Buy Path For $100+ Million. Path Said No." Archived July 4, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, Techcrunch, February 2, 2011. Retrieved February 15, 2011.
  39. ^ Akash Pasricha (July 27, 2021). "Redmond-based clean energy startup to build pioneering fusion energy facility". The Seattle Times. Retrieved August 23, 2021.
  40. ^ Louis, Serah. "Meet the Wives and Girlfriends of Billionaires". MoneyWise. Retrieved February 6, 2022.
  41. ^ Cha, Ariana Eunjung (December 26, 2014). "Cari Tuna and Dustin Moskovitz: Young Silicon Valley billionaires pioneer new approach to philanthropy". The Washington Post. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  42. ^ Moskovitz, Dustin (September 5, 2013). "Radical Inclusion vs. Radical Self-Reliance at Burning Man". Archived from the original on May 30, 2019. Retrieved September 22, 2016.
  43. ^ Allen, Nick (September 6, 2013). "Facebook's Dustin Moskovitz hugs the Winklevoss twins at Burning Man. Dustin Moskovitz of Facebook tells how he met the Winklevoss twins at the Burning Man festival in Nevada. Is one of the most celebrated feuds of the internet age over?". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on February 5, 2019. Retrieved September 22, 2016.
  44. ^ Shontell, Alyson (September 5, 2013). "A Strange Thing Happened the First Time Facebook's Co-Founder Met the Winklevoss Twins — They Hugged". Business Insider. Archived from the original on September 23, 2016. Retrieved September 22, 2016.
  45. ^ Moskovitz, Dustin."Reply on Quora to: What does Dustin Moskovitz think of the Facebook movie?" Archived October 27, 2020, at the Wayback Machine, Quora, July 16, 2010. Retrieved February 15, 2011.

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