Forbes’ richest under-40s and the Facebook billionaires factory
THE Forbes 40 list of America’s richest young entrepreneurs has been unveiled, and there’s one thing many of them have in common.
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FACEBOOK chief executive Mark Zuckerberg is the kingpin — no surprises there.
But what you may not realise about this year’s Forbes 40 under 40 list is just how many of the United States’ richest young entrepreneurs attained their wealth via the social network.
Eight of those listed owe their success to Facebook in some way, whether by helping set up the social network in its early days, or selling it their inventions.
The youngest entrepreneur on the list, 23-year-old Palmer Luckey — too youthful to even have a profile in Facebook’s early days — shot to multi-millionaire status when the social media giant bought his start-up.
The company acquired Oculus VR, Luckey’s virtual reality tech company, co-founded with Brendan Iribe, for $2.3 billion in stock and cash in 2013.
“Even in my wildest dreams, I never imagined we’d come so far so fast,” Luckey wrote on the company’s blog about the deal.
Luckey’s stake, and his ongoing financial decisions, have given him a net worth of $700 million.
Not bad for a homeschooled, video games-obsessed college dropout who was just 12-years-old when Zuckerberg started Facebook.
Luckey brought his dream to life after two years spent fiddling with old virtual reality equipment in his parents’ garage, all while living in a caravan parked in the family’s driveway in Long Beach, California.
He still works at Oculus, which Zuckerberg, 31 — who holds the number one ranking in the Forbes 40 list, with a net worth of $47 billion — has hailed as a leader in the next “major computing platform” of virtual reality.
The company’s main product, the Oculus Rift, is a virtual reality headset scheduled for release in early 2016, which could revolutionise not just gaming, but the whole spectrum of home entertainment.
“Imagine enjoying a courtside seat at a game … just by putting on goggles in your home,”
Zuckerberg has said of the device’s potential.
Known for wearing Hawaiian shirts and thongs, Luckey told Forbes he still lived in a share house with six other people, who shared his love of video games.
After the Facebook deal was signed, he bought a Tesla Model S luxury electric car.
Also raking in the cash from a sale to Facebook is WhatsApp founderJan Koum, America’s third-richest young entrepreneur.
The Ukrainian immigrant, 39, is worth $8.8 billion thanks to a $22 billion cash and stock deal signed last year.
And those who helped Zuckerberg start Facebook from their dorm room Harvard University in 2004 are doing pretty well out on their own.
Dustin Moskovitz, 31, who left the company in 2008 to start workplace software firm Asana, comes in second on the Forbes 40 list with a net worth of $9.7 billion.
Chris Hughes, 34,cashed out in 2007 to focus on projects like President Obama’s 2008 online election campaign — and investing in the more challenging industry of print publication, buying politics and arts magazine The New Republic.
Hughes, who earned the nickname “The Empath” while working at Facebook, is currently ranked at number 36 on the list with a $450 million net worth.
Facebook’s founding president, and former Napster founder Sean Parker left after just a year.
Now aged 35, he has a net worth of $2.5 billion and is ranked tenth on the list. This year, he established The Parker Foundation, a $600 million charity focused on life sciences, global health and civic engagement.
Matt Cohler, tied at number 26 with a $700 million net worth, is a partner at venture capital firm Benchmark and owns stakes in Dropbox, Quora and Instagram.
The 38-year-old worked at Facebook as its Vice President of Product Management from 2005 to 2008, and also co-founded LinkedIn.
Adam D’Angelo, 31, who left his position as Facebook’s chief technology officer role just before Cohler, went on the found question and answer website Quora.
Its spectacular success has placed him number 31 on the list, with $600 million.
Snapchat founders Evan Spiegeland Bobby Murphyalso got their start at Facebook, and at 25 and 27 are America’s youngest billionaires.
Spiegel is worth $2.1 billion and Murphy follows closely behind at $1.8 billion, placing them 12th and 13th on the list.
It was by declining to sell the popular app to Facebook that they attained such massive wealth, with Spiegel telling Forbes last year that he was not interested in short-term gain.
Snapchat now has 100 million daily users and is valued at $16 billion.
Of course, Facebook itself continues to dominate, with its share price up more than 40 per cent in the past year and Zuckerberg — the world’s seventh richest person — worth $47.1 billion.
Other tech companies to make young entrepreneurs billionaires are Uber and Airbnb, with six young men now extremely wealthy because of their work developing the user share systems.
And Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, 38 — who also runs payments company Square — comes in at number 11 with $2.2 billion.
Dorsey made headlines when he sacked eight per cent of Twitter’s staff and promised a third of his shares to those who remained.
The only woman on the list is 31-year-old Elizabeth Holmes, whose blood testing company Theranos has given her a $4.5 billion net worth, despite its recent controversy.
FORBES’ 40 UNDER 40
1. Mark Zuckerberg, 31— $47.1 billion (Facebook)
2. Dustin Moskovitz, 31— $9.7 billion (Asana)
3. Jan Koum, 39— $8.8 billion (WhatsApp)
4. Garrett Camp, 37— $6 billion (Uber)
5. Travis Kalanick, 39— $6 billion (Uber)
6. Elizabeth Holmes, 31— $4.5 billion (Theranos)
7. Nathan Blecharczyk, 32— $3.3 billion (Airbnb)
8. Brian Chesky, 34— $3.3 billion (Airbnb)
9. Joe Gebbia, 34— $3.3 billion (Airbnb)
10. Sean Parker, 35— $2.5 billion (ex-Facebook, Napster)
11. Jack Dorsey, 38— $2.2 billion (Twitter, Square)
12. Robert Pera, 37— $2.1 billion (Ubiquiti Networks)
13. Evan Spiegel, 25— $2.1 billion (Snapchat)
14. Snapchat’s Bobby Murphy, 27 — $1.8 billion
15. Ben Silbermann, 33— $1.6 billion (Pinterest)
16. Ryan Graves, 32— $1.5 billion (Uber)
17. Adam Neumann, 36— $1.5 billion (WeWork)
18. Drew Houston, 32— $1.2 billion (Dropbox)
19. Brian Sheth, 39— $1.1 billion (private equity)
20. Evan Sharp, 32— $1.1 billion (Pinterest, ex-Facebook)
21. Orion Hindawi, 35— $1 billion (Tanium)
22. Parker Conrad, 35— $900 million (Zenefits)
23. John Collison, 25— $750 million (Stripe)
24. Patrick Collison, 27— $750 million (Stripe)
25. Peter Szulczewski, 34— $720 million (Wish, ContextLogic, ex-Google)
26. Matt Cohler, 38— $700 million (Benchmark, ex-Facebook)
26. Palmer Luckey, 23— $700 million (Oculus)
26. Tiger Woods, 39— $700 million (athlete)
29. Eric Friedman, 38— $660 million (Fitbit)
29. James Park, 39— $660 million (Fitbit)
31. Adam D’Angelo, 31— $600 million (Quora, ex-Facebook)
32. Paul Sciarra, 34— $550 million (Pinterest)
33. Arash Ferdowsi, 30— $500 million (Dropbox)
33. Vivek Ramaswamy, 30— $500 million (investor)
33. Chris Wanstrath, 31— $500 million (GitHub)
36. Chris Hughes, 34— $450 million (Pinterest)
37. Tom Preston-Werner, 36— $440 million (GitHub)
38. Charlie Chanaratsopon, 37— $425 million (Charming Charlie)
38. Joe Lonsdale, 33— $425 million (Palantir, ex-PayPal)
40. Apoorva Mehta, 29— $400 million (Instacart)
Originally published as Forbes’ richest under-40s and the Facebook billionaires factory
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