The History of Facebook: Who created the first 10 Facebook Accounts?
The social media giant that we all know as Facebook was born over 16 years ago in a college dorm room at Harvard and is now boasting 1.73 billion daily active users, with $17.74 billion in revenue for the first quarter of 2020, according to the Q1 2020 reports released at the end of April.
But how was it all born?
Who was the first Facebook user and who created the first Facebook account?
And where are the first Facebook users now?
If you’re curious to know who created the 1st Facebook account and who are the people that followed, check out our list below.
- Mark Zuckerberg
- Chris Hughes
- Dustin Moskovitz
- Arie Hasit
- Andrew McCollum
- Colin Kelly
- Mark Kaganovich
- Andrei Boros
- Manuel Antonio Aguilar
- Zach Bercu
Top 10 People Who Created the First Facebook Accounts
1. Mark Zuckerberg
As you might have guessed it, #1 on Facebook is Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook. He founded Facebook on February 4, 2004, together with a few Harvard classmates, and he was the first one to create an official Facebook profile with ID no. 4.
The first three profiles were tests made by Zuckerberg and no longer exist, so the first account on Facebook is no longer there, but Zuckerberg’s is definitely the oldest Facebook account.
Although Zuckerberg was accused by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss for stealing their idea, and there seems to be some truth about those allegations — because where there is smoke, there is fire, in most cases — he was never ruled against and the parties eventually reached a settlement.
Though he initially agreed to work on the Winklevosses and Divya Narendra’s project, Harvard Connection, Mark then purposefully decided to string them along while he was working on a similar project of his own called The Facebook at the time, delaying the launch of their website so that he could launch his project first.
The owners of Harvard Connection, which was later turned into ConnectU, eventually received a settlement of $65 million from Facebook.
Now does that pay for that supposedly stolen idea? Maybe.
Would Facebook have become what it is today without Zuckerberg behind the wheel? Probably not.
Does that excuse his less than orthodox methods? I’ll let you decide.
But the fact of the matter is that he has transformed Facebook into an empire and is currently its chairman, CEO, and controlling shareholder.
2. Chris Hughes
Chris Hughes is one of the co-founders of Facebook and the owner of profile ID no. 5.
Known as “the Empath” among Facebook insiders, he was the main creative force behind many of Facebook’s popular features, trying to figure out ways that would make it easier and more fun for people to connect. He was mainly in charge of making product suggestions, beta testing, and became the company’s go-to spokesperson and customer service representative.
In 2007, Hughes left Facebook to volunteer for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, playing a key role in its success.
Chris went on to other projects, and of 2019, he is the co-chair of the Economic Security Project, a company that fights to bring economic stability to all Americans. As he says in his book Fair Shot: Rethinking Inequality and How We Earn, making money so rapidly from Facebook has made him realize how privileged he is and how unfair his position is to the millions of Americans living below the poverty line. So he’s trying to give back.
Essentially, his proposal is to take from the rich and give to the poor. In fact, he is so against the monopoly of money and power that he is even committed to breaking up Facebook, the same company that made him rich to begin with. Chris believes that the company is so big and powerful that it threatens our democracy. Nobody should be allowed to have that level of power, in his opinion.
“America was built on the idea that power should not be concentrated in any one person, because we are all fallible. That’s why the founders created a system of checks and balances. They didn’t need to foresee the rise of Facebook to understand the threat that gargantuan companies would pose to democracy.”, Hughes said.
And he is actually taking measures to end Facebook as we know it. The Economic Security Project invested $10 million in an Anti-Monopoly Fund that will go to think tanks, researchers, and activists working on these issues.
3. Dustin Moskovitz
Dustin Moskovitz was one of Mark Zuckerberg’s roommates and is one of the Facebook co-founders as well. Unsurprisingly, he is also the owner of ID no. 6.
He is now the CEO of Asana, a work-management platform that he co-founded in 2008 when he left Facebook. He also co-founded the philanthropic organization Good Ventures with his wife (then girlfriend) Cari Tuna in 2011.
Good Ventures then partnered with GiveWell, a charity assessment organization, which eventually led to the birth of the Open Philanthropy Project, a research and grantmaking foundation whose main objective is to figure out how to use large sums of money to do the most good in the world.
Dustin and Cari also signed the Giving Pledge, a campaign founded by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to encourage wealthy people to donate a large part of their fortune to philanthropic causes. They are the youngest couple on the list.
