Web 2.0 Moguls
The second wave of .com startups (web 2.0) produced a whole new legion of millionaires and role models for internet entrepreneurs. We wanted to know where they went to school and what kind of degree each of them received. Who never went to college? Who did and dropped out to make a fortune? Who has a degree and what kind?
Below are a few names you will probably recognize. One thing you might notice is how varied their educational backgrounds are, although a Computer Science degree played a role in many of Web 2.0's greatest successes:
Dave Sifry: founded Technorati
Education: Earned his bachelor’s degree in computer science at Johns Hopkins University
Personal Page: http://www.sifry.com/alerts/
Interesting Note: Dave worked for three years at Mitsubishi Electronics in Japan. “I was the first foreigner to come into my factory in 17 years,” he said. 'It was blue boiler suits and company exercises in the morning,' he remembers fondly.
Kevin Rose: founded Digg
Education: Attended University of Nevada, Las Vegas for Computer Science and dropped out during the big 90's tech boom.
Personal Page: http://kevinrose.com/
Interesting Note: Business Week reported that Kevin lost his girlfriend during the launch of Digg and that the money meant for a house deposit instead went to fund the startup.
Dick Costolo: cofounded FeedBurner
Education: Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from University of Michigan
Personal Page: http://www.burningdoor.com/askthewizard/
Interesting Note: Dick is somewhat of a thespian, having acted in several theatre and television roles.
Eric Lunt: cofounded FeedBurner
Education: B.S.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Princeton University
Personal Page: http://www.burningdoor.com/eric/
Interesting Note: He also owns US Patent 6, 453,046 for his "Apparatus and method for navigating objects within a computer-implemented object environment".
Steve Olechowski: cofounded FeedBurner
Education: Degree in Computer Studies and Economics from Northwestern University in Evanston, IL
Personal Page: http://www.burningdoor.com/lineofsite/
Interesting Note: Feedburner is Steve’s third startup.
Matt Shobe: cofounded FeedBurner
Education: Masters in Technical Communication from the University of Washington and Bachelors in English from Purdue.
Personal Page: http://www.burningdoor.com/matt/
Interesting Note: Matt's first purchase online was in 1995 when he bought software from outpost.com.
Matt Mullenweg: founded WordPress
Education: Dropped out of the University of Houston to take a job with CNET.
Personal Page: http://photomatt.net/
Interesting Note: He studied jazz saxophone in high school.
Niklas Zennström: cofounded KaZaA and Skype, and currently working on Joost with Janus Friis.
Education: Degrees in Business Administration and Engineering Physics from Uppsala University in Sweden, but spent his final year of college at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor campus.
Personal Page: http://about.skype.com/executiveteam/niklaszennstrom/
Interesting Note: Skype was recently sold to Ebay for $2.6 Billion.
Janus Friis: cofounded KaZaA and Skype
Education: The School of Hard Knocks (no formal education)
Personal Page: http://www.janusfriis.net/
Interesting Note: Friis was in the 2006 list of 100 most influential people according to Time Magazine.
Jeremy Schoemaker: (AKA Shoemoney) was the founder of Auctionads and various social ringtone sites like nextpimp.com
Education: Attended Western Illinois University but did not complete his degree
Personal Page: http://www.shoemoney.com/
Interesting Note: Although still 'in charge' Shoemoney also used to be large: http://www.shoemoney.com/gallery/v/used+to+be+fat/.
John Chow: Founded The TechZone
Education: Degree in Financial Management from the British Columbia Institute of Technology.
Personal Page: http://www.johnchow.com/
Interesting Note: At the time of this writing, John Chow's website doesn't even show up for his own name on a Google search because his site has been penalized for artificial link building schemes.
Jawed Karim: cofounded YouTube
Education: Bachelor's Degree in computer science from the University of Illinois
Personal Page: http://www.jawed.com/
Interesting Note: Jawed worked at PayPal while continuing his computer science degree coursework.
Chad Hurley: cofounded YouTube
Education: Bachelors in Fine Arts from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
Personal Page: http://www.youtube.com/chad
Interesting Note: Wall Street Journal once reported that Chad was responsible in part for designing EBay's original PayPal logo.
Steve Chen: cofounded YouTube
Education: Computer Science degree from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Personal Page: http://www.youtube.com/steve
Interesting Note: Chen also worked at Paypal with his YouTube Cofounders and was an early employee at Facebook.
Mark Zuckerberg: founded Facebook
Education: Attended Harvard University and would have graduated in 2006 had he not dropped out after some heated discussions with Harvard's Administration Board over his Harvard-specific image rating sight, similar to Hot or Not.
Personal Page: http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=2208197130
Interesting Note: Mark used the site he got in hot water for at Harvard as the basis for Facebook.
Tom Anderson: cofounder of MySpace
Education: Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric and English from Berkeley and a Master's degree in film from University of California, Los Angeles.
Personal Page: http://www.myspace.com/tom
Interesting Note: Tom was my first friend on MySpace. Oh, he was yours too?
Chris DeWolfe: cofounder of MySpace
Education: Bachelor of Arts and an MBA degree from the University of Southern California
Personal Page: http://www.myspace.com/6
Interesting Note: Chris has the sixth account ever made on MySpace. His profile is private.
Alex Welch: cofounder of Photobucket
Education: Bachelor of Science degree from Colorado State University
Personal Page: http://photobucket.com/about/team
Interesting Note: Both CoFounders of Photobucket worked for Level 3 Communications in Broomfield, Colorado.
Darren Crystal: cofounder of Photobucket
Education: Studied Electrical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin.
Personal Page: http://photobucket.com/about/team
Interesting Note: Darren used to be a network engineer at Dell Corporation.
Todd Sampson: cofounded MyBlogLog
Education: BA in Marketing and Business Administration from University of Central Florida in 1995.
Personal Page: http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/members/toddsampson
Interesting Note: Todd and Mybloglog Cofounder Eric Marcoullier have been friends since grade school.
Eric Marcoullier: cofounded MyBlogLog
Education: He dropped out of college to launch web sites for Imagine Media and soon after co-founded IGN.com in the summer of 1996.
Personal Page: http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/members/Eric
Interesting Note: Eric enjoys 80’s movies, post-punk music.
