Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes writes in his new op-ed for the New York Times that Facebook has become a “threat” to democracy.
Wait, who is Chris Hughes?
Until this week, the face of Facebook has always been hoodie-clad computer genius Mark Zuckerberg, whose story of rampant success and legal troubles was immortalized by actor Jesse Eisenberg in 2010 with David Fincher’s “The Social Network.”
However, for those who don’t remember how the story began in a dorm room at Harvard, there were actually five co-founders: Mark Zuckerberg, Chris Hughes, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Andrew McCollum — most of whom were depicted in the two-hour film.
Hughes, played by Patrick Mapel, stuck with Facebook as a spokesperson (the original face of Facebook) and product developer for another year before leaving to volunteer for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign — where he began a career in public service and media, most notably serving as publisher and editor-in-chief of the New Republic from 2012 to 2016. He sold the magazine to publisher Win McCormack, at one point telling TNR’s staff that he had “underestimated the difficulty of transitioning an old and traditional institution into a digital media company in today’s quickly evolving climate.” He currently lives in upstate New York with his husband and would-be politician Sean Eldridge. Hughes’ net worth is $430 million.
Brazilian-born Saverin, played by “The Amazing Spider-Man” actor Andrew Garfield, worked on Facebook as chief financial officer and business manager until 2005 when he was allegedly pushed out by Zuckerberg. The pair launched into tit-for-tat litigation and eventually settled out of court in 2009, when a non-disclosure agreement was signed. In the end, Zuckerberg was forced to recognize Saverin’s role as co-founder. Today, he’s the founder of venture capital firm B Capital and lives in Singapore. His net worth is $10 billion.
Moskovitz, played by “Bohemian Rhapsody” actor Joseph Mazzello, served as Facebook’s first chief technology officer and was later VP of engineering and led the company’s transition to mobile platforms. He left Facebook in 2008 to form Asana, a workplace management application, and later co-founded the philanthropic organization Good Ventures. In 2011, Forbes dubbed Moskovitz the youngest self-made billionaire in history thanks to his 2.34 percent share in Facebook. His net worth is $11.6 billion.
Lesser known co-founder McCollum, who was not included in the film, helped get Facebook off the ground in 2004, but left the social site about a year later to finish his degree at Harvard and never returned to the company. He’s not even listed in Facebook’s founder bios. He went on to co-found resume prep tool JobSpice and is now the CEO of live streaming service Philo. He’s reportedly worth $20 million.
And who could forget “Call Me by Your Name” actor Armie Hammer, who uncannily played both Winklevoss twins Cameron and Tyler. While his role is memorable and undoubtedly launched his career, the so-called Winklevi were not Facebook co-founders, but claim Zuckerberg stole their Harvard classmate Divya Narendra’s idea for an internet-based social network called ConnectU. They sued Zuckerberg and eventually settled for cash and stock then-valued at a total of $65 million. The twins made even more in venture capitalism and bitcoin. Their combined net worth fluctuates thanks to bitcoin’s volatile market, but falls somewhere in the hundreds of millions.
