Adam D'Angelo

Adam D'Angelo
D'Angelo in 2022
Born	(1984-08-14) August 14, 1984 (age 40) Redding, Connecticut, U.S.
Education	California Institute of Technology (BS)
Occupation	CEO of Quora
Known for	Former CTO of Facebook, co-founder of Quora
Board member of	OpenAI Asana, Inc.

Adam D'Angelo (born August 14, 1984) is an American internet entrepreneur. He is best known for his role as the co-founder and CEO of Quora, based in Mountain View, California, and as the first Chief Technology Officer of Facebook now Meta.

Early life and education

Adam D'Angelo was born on August 14, 1984 in Redding, Connecticut, United States. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy for high school. While a student there, he developed the Synapse Media Player (a music suggestion program) with Philips classmate Mark Zuckerberg and others. ^[1]

From 2002 to 2006, D'Angelo attended California Institute of Technology, where he graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science. ^[2]

Career

In 2004, while attending college, D'Angelo created the website BuddyZoo, which allowed users to upload their AIM buddy list in order to compare with those of other users. BuddyZoo also generated network graphs based on these lists. ^{[1] [3]}

D'Angelo joined Facebook shortly after its launch in 2004, and served as its chief technology officer (CTO) from 2006 to 2008, and as its vice president of engineering until 2008. ^{[4] [5]}

In June 2009, D'Angelo co-founded Quora ^[6] with former Facebook software engineer, Charlie Cheever. ^[7] In May 2012, he invested $20 million of his own money in Quora as part of the company's $50 million Series B round of financing. ^[8] In 2013, D'Angelo made Quora's only acquisition, of Parliamentum, a start-up founded by former Google employee Waed Ghuelim.

D'Angelo was also an early investor in Instagram before its 2012 acquisition by Facebook, Asana, a work management platform, and Lunchclub, a networking platform using artificial intelligence. ^[9]

D'Angelo is the founder of an AI startup, Poe. ^[10] Poe is currently integrated within Quora as well.

D'Angelo was an early advisor to Instagram prior to 2012. ^[11]

OpenAI

In 2018, he joined the board of directors of OpenAI. ^[12] In November 2023, D'Angelo was one of four board members who voted to remove Sam Altman from his role as CEO of OpenAI. ^{[13] [12]} When Sam Altman returned to OpenAI, the other three board members involved in Altman's ouster resigned. D'Angelo was the only of the six original board members who remained following Altman's return.

Honors and achievements

• USA Computing Olympiad: eighth place while still a high school student, 2001;
• International Olympiad in Informatics: silver medal, 2002 ^[14]
• ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC): California Institute of Technology Beavers (team of 3), World Finalists 2003, 2004; North American Champions 2003; World Finals Silver Medals 2004; World Finals co-coach 2005. ^{[15] [16]}
• Topcoder Collegiate Challenge, Algorithm Coding Competition: placed among the top 24 finalists, 2005
• Fortune magazine included D'Angelo as a runner-up in its "Smartest people in tech: Engineers", 2010. ^[17]
• Forbes List of America's Richest Entrepreneurs Under 40 (2016), number 24: Net worth $600 million. ^[7]

References

1. David Kirkpatrick (2010). The Facebook Effect . pp. 26–27.
2. Benter, Allison (June 9, 2006). "California Institute of Technology 112th Annual Commencement, June 9, 2006". California Institute of Technology Library. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 3, 2019.
3. "BuddyZoo". Archived from the original on October 28, 2003. Retrieved October 28, 2003.
4. Eldon, Eric (May 11, 2008). "Facebook CTO Adam D'Angelo to leave the company". VentureBeat. Retrieved August 12, 2011.
5. Feeney, Kevin J. (February 24, 2005). "Business, Casual". The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved August 12, 2011.
6. Rivlin, Gary (April 28, 2011). "Does Quora Really Have All the Answers?". Wired. Retrieved August 12, 2011.
7. Barton, Merrilee (2016). "Forbes 40 Under 40: Adam D'Angelo profile". Forbes. Retrieved March 6, 2025.
8. "Quora Raises $50M At $400M From Peter Thiel, D'Angelo Puts In $20M Of His Own Money". TechCrunch. May 14, 2012.
9. Levitsky, Allison (October 17, 2019). "Q: WHAT DOES ADAM D'ANGELO WANT TO DO WITH QUORA?".
10. Pardes, Arielle. "Adam D'Angelo's Endless Quest to Answer Everything". The Information.
11. Sengupta, Somini; Perlroth, Nicole; Wortham, Jenna (April 14, 2012). "Instagram Founders Were Helped by Bay Area Connections". The New York Times.
12. "The Quiet Silicon Valley Insider Complicating Sam Altman's Return". The Information.
13. Konrad, Alex (November 17, 2023). "These Are The People That Fired OpenAI CEO Sam Altman". Forbes. Retrieved November 17, 2023.
14. "Exeter Olympians". Exeter Bulletin. Retrieved August 12, 2011.
15. "Standings for The 2003 ACM Programming Contest World Finals". Archived from the original on August 21, 2014. Retrieved June 20, 2014.
16. "Standings for The 2004 ACM Programming Contest World Finals". Archived from the original on July 12, 2014. Retrieved June 20, 2014.
17. Hempel, Jessi; Kowitt, Beth; Mangalindan, JP (July 9, 2010). "The smartest people in tech - Engineer runners-up: Cheever and D'Angelo (22)". Fortune Magazine . CNN. Archived from the original on September 12, 2010. Retrieved October 10, 2010.