Chris Hughes | |
---|---|
Born | Christopher Hughes November 26, 1983 Hickory, North Carolina, U.S. |
Education | Harvard University (AB) The New School (MA) University of Pennsylvania |
Occupation | Entrepreneur |
Known for | Co-founder of Facebook |
Political party | Democratic |
Spouse |
Christopher "Chris" Hughes (born November 26, 1983 [1] ) is an American entrepreneur and author who co-founded and served as spokesman for the online social directory and networking site Facebook until 2007. He was the publisher and editor-in-chief of The New Republic from 2012 to 2016.
Hughes co-founded the Economic Security Project (ESP) in 2016. In 2018, he published Fair Shot: Rethinking Inequality and How We Earn.
Hughes grew up in Hickory, North Carolina, [2] as the only child of Arlen "Ray" Hughes, an industrial paper salesman, and Brenda Hughes, a mathematics teacher. [3] He was raised as an evangelical Lutheran. [4] He graduated from Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, before earning a Bachelor of Arts in History and English Literature, magna cum laude, from Harvard College. [3] [5]
In February 2020, it was reported that Hughes was in the process of earning his Master of Arts in Economics from The New School. [6] He has since begun a Doctor of Philosophy in business ethics and legal studies at the University of Pennsylvania. [7]
Hughes is a co-founder of Facebook. [6] [8] [9] At Harvard, Hughes met and was recruited by Mark Zuckerberg, who was still working in the early stages of the website. During their summer break in 2004, Hughes and Zuckerberg traveled to Palo Alto, California. While Zuckerberg decided to remain in Palo Alto after the break, Hughes returned to Harvard to continue his studies. [3] In 2006, after graduating from Harvard, Hughes relocated to Palo Alto to rejoin Zuckerberg and became involved in Facebook again.[ citation needed ]
Hughes was unofficially responsible for beta testing and product suggestions. When the group had the idea to open Facebook to other schools, Hughes argued that schools should have their networks to maintain intimacy. He was also a key driver in developing many of Facebook's popular features, which led to the opening of Facebook to the outside world. [3]
Hughes left Facebook in 2007. [6] [10]
When Facebook's initial public offering took place in 2012, Hughes made $500 million. [11]
In March 2009, Hughes was named Entrepreneur in Residence at General Catalyst, a Cambridge, Massachusetts, venture-capital firm. [12]
Hughes was the executive director of Jumo, a non-profit social network organization he founded in 2010, which "aims to help people find ways to help the world". [13] [14] In July 2010, UNAIDS (Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS) appointed him to a 17-member "High Level Commission" of renowned politicians, business leaders, human rights activists, and scientists tasked with spearheading a "social and political action campaign over the coming year aimed at galvanizing support for effective HIV prevention programmes." [15]
In March 2012, Hughes purchased a majority stake in The New Republic magazine. He became the publisher and executive chairman and also served as editor-in-chief of the magazine. [16] In December 2014, shortly after the magazine's centennial celebration, editor Franklin Foer and literary editor Leon Wieseltier were "driven out," and dozens of other staff and contributing editors resigned after a new chief executive, Guy Vidra, a former Yahoo! employee, described the new direction of the magazine as a "vertically integrated digital media company." [17] The magazine was forced to cancel its upcoming issue due to the staff departures. [17]
The magazine was not profitable during Hughes' tenure. [18] On January 11, 2016, Hughes put The New Republic up for sale, saying he had "underestimated the difficulty of transitioning an old and traditional institution into a digital media company in today's quickly evolving climate." [18] Hughes' ownership of The New Republic was described by The New York Times as a "vanity project." [19] He sold the magazine on February 26, 2016, to Oregon publisher Win McCormack. [20]
Hughes co-founded the Economic Security Project in 2016. [6] In 2018, he published Fair Shot: Rethinking Inequality and How We Earn. [21]
In May 2019, he published an op-ed in the New York Times , calling for the break-up of Facebook and government regulation of content on it; [22] in June of the same year, he criticized the Facebook decision to launch Libra (which was later renamed Diem), saying that the cryptocurrency "would shift power into the wrong hands if, at least, the coin be modestly successful". [23]
After leaving Facebook, Hughes volunteered for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. [6] [10]
Hughes and Sean Eldridge bought a $2 million residence in New York's 19th congressional district with the reported purpose of permitting Eldridge to run for the congressional seat there. [24] In 2014, Eldridge lost his congressional bid by 29 points. [25]
Hughes endorsed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the run-up for the 2016 U.S. presidential election. [26]
Hughes is openly gay and is married to Sean Eldridge. [27] Hughes and Eldridge announced their engagement in January 2011 at a reception supporting Freedom to Marry. They married on June 30, 2012. [28] [5]
Hughes was portrayed by actor Patrick Mapel in the 2010 film The Social Network . [29]
Sean Parker is an American entrepreneur and philanthropist, most notable for co-founding the file-sharing computer service Napster, and serving as the first president of the social networking website Facebook. He also co-founded Plaxo, Causes, Airtime.com, and Brigade, an online platform for civic engagement. He is the founder and chairman of the Parker Foundation, which focuses on life sciences, global public health, and civic engagement. On the Forbes 2022 list of the world's billionaires, he was ranked No. 1,096 with a net worth of US$2.8 billion.
Jumo was a social network service and website launched on November 30, 2010, to index charities so that people can find and evaluate them. Jumo was founded by Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes. On August 17, 2011, he announced Jumo was merging with the GOOD organization, providing a social engagement platform to complement their magazine content.
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is an American businessman and philanthropist. He co-founded the social media service Facebook, along with his Harvard roommates in 2004, and its parent company Meta Platforms, of which he is executive chairman, chief executive officer and controlling shareholder.
Reid Garrett Hoffman is an American internet entrepreneur, venture capitalist, podcaster, and author. Hoffman was the co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn, a business-oriented social network used primarily for professional networking. He is currently a partner at the venture capital firm Greylock Partners and a co-founder of Inflection AI.
Melissa (Lafsky) Saleh is an American writer and entrepreneur. She began her career as a writer by founding the Opinionistas blog, which focused on the dehumanizing aspects of working at large law firms. She then entered digital journalism, writing for media brands like the Huffington Post and launching sites for Newsweek and the New York Times. She then moved to Silicon Valley and became a startup founder.
Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes, its name derives from the face book directories often given to American university students. Membership was initially limited to Harvard students, gradually expanding to other North American universities. Since 2006, Facebook allows everyone to register from 13 years old, except in the case of a handful of nations, where the age limit is 14 years. As of December 2022, Facebook claimed 3 billion monthly active users. As of October 2023 Facebook ranked as the 3rd most visited website in the world with 22.56% of its traffic coming from the United States. It was the most downloaded mobile app of the 2010s.
GOOD Worldwide Inc. is a United States-based company with offices in Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle that reports on businesses and non-profits. GOOD produces a website, a quarterly magazine, online videos, and events. Content covered includes environmental issues, education, urban planning, design, politics, culture, technology, and health. Good Worldwide Inc. is the consolidation of originally separate brands: Reason Pictures, GOOD magazine, and GOOD Digital, in partnership with Causes, a Facebook/MySpace app promoting donations of time and money to charities and non-profits; Goodrec and Govit, an application that connects US citizens with their elected representatives. GOOD Worldwide Inc. is made up of three organizations: GOOD/Media, GOOD/Community and GOOD/Corps.
Win McCormack is an American political activist, publisher, and editor from Oregon.
Dustin Aaron Moskovitz is an American billionaire internet entrepreneur who co-founded Facebook, Inc. with Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum and Chris Hughes. In 2008, he left Facebook to co-found Asana 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. As of October 2023, his net worth is estimated at US$18.0 billion by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Eduardo Luiz Saverin is a Brazilian billionaire entrepreneur and angel investor based in Singapore. Saverin is one of the co-founders of Facebook. In 2012, he owned 53 million Facebook shares, valued at approximately $2 billion at the time. He also invested in early-stage startups such as Qwiki and Jumio. As of February 17, 2024, his net worth was $26.2 billion, making him the 65th richest person in the world.
The Social Network is a 2010 American biographical drama film directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin, based on the 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich. It portrays the founding of social networking website Facebook. It stars Jesse Eisenberg as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, with Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Saverin, Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker, Armie Hammer as Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and Max Minghella as Divya Narendra. Neither Zuckerberg nor any other Facebook staff were involved with the project, although Saverin was a consultant for Mezrich's book.
The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, a Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal is a 2009 book by Ben Mezrich about the founding of Facebook, adapted by Aaron Sorkin for the 2010 film The Social Network. Co-founder Eduardo Saverin served as Mezrich's main consultant, although he declined to speak with him while the book was being researched. After Zuckerberg and Saverin settled their lawsuit, Saverin broke off contact with the author.
True/Slant (T/S) was an original content news network. It was based in a loft in SoHo in New York City funded with $3 million in capital by Forbes Media and Fuse Capital. It was acquired by Forbes in May 2010.
Christopher Cox is a software engineer and chief product officer at Meta Platforms.
Sean Eldridge is a Canadian-born American political activist from New York. Eldridge is the founder and president of Stand Up America, a progressive advocacy community. He previously served as political director of Freedom to Marry, an organization advocating for the legalization of same-sex marriage. Eldridge ran for Congress in New York's 19th congressional district in 2014, but was defeated. He is the spouse of Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes.
Kevin Systrom is an American computer programmer and entrepreneur. He co-founded Instagram, the world's largest photo sharing website, along with Mike Krieger.
David Kirkpatrick is a technology journalist, author, and organizer of technology-oriented conferences. He is the author of The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company that is Connecting the World. Published in 2010, Kirkpatrick's book chronicles the history of the company since its inception in 2004 and documents Facebook's global impact. Formerly Senior Editor of Internet and Technology at Fortune magazine, Kirkpatrick was until the end of 2022 the editor-in-chief of Techonomy Media Inc., a tech-focused conference company which he founded in 2011.
Joe Green is a serial social entrepreneur and investor based in San Francisco, CA. He is the co-founder and President of the Psychedelic Science Funders Collaborative, a nonprofit donor network that supports research on psychedelic medicine. Green is also the co-founder of Treehouse, a company that develops community living apartment complexes in Los Angeles, CA.
Guy Vidra is currently a partner at Collaborative Fund, a venture capital firm. Previously, he was the Head of Revenue for XO Group. For 19 months, from October 2014 to April 2016, he was Chief Executive Officer of The New Republic. Before that, he was the General Manager and head of Strategy & Development at Yahoo! News.
The Global Entrepreneurship Summit is an annual event organized by the federal government of the United States, in partnership with foreign government hosts. The summit originated from an event organized by the Obama Administration called the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship, which was held in April 2010 in Washington, D.C. It brought together entrepreneurs from the United States, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia to discuss the importance of social and economic entrepreneurship, establish entrepreneurship as an important area of policy focus, and strengthen mutually beneficial relationships between entrepreneurs.