The Men Who Made Millions From Facebook

As well as being a worldwide phenomenon and the focus of a hit film, Facebook has made some people very, very rich. We take a look at them.

It's hard to imagine that Facebook was founded just over seven years ago. With more than 500 million users worldwide and around half the population of the UK signed up, the social networking site has transformed the way many of us communicate with one another in its short life thus far.

Naturally, that popularity has meant big money for some of the people involved its success. We take a closer look at some of the famous (and not-so-famous) men that have made millions from Facebook.

Dustin Moskovitz

The third employee of Facebook, co-founder Dustin Moskovitz has now achieved the status of the world's youngest billionaire - beating his old Harvard room-mate Mark Zuckerberg to the title by just eight days.

Going on to become the firm's first chief technology officer and then vice president of engineering, Moskovitz left in 2008 to start Asana, a software company that aims to "reimagine the way people manage information".

Mark Zuckerberg

CEO and founder of the company, 26-year-old Harvard graduate Mark Zuckerberg is now a household name around the world, with a net worth of $13.5 billion (£8.4bn).

Zuckerberg's fortune was further boosted this year after Facebook's valuation soared to $50 billion (£31.3bn) in the last year, thanks in part to a large investment from Goldman Sachs.

President Obama recently hailed the site in his State of the Union address as an example of great American innovation.

Eduardo Saverin

Played by Andrew Garfield in the film, Eduardo Saverin was Zuckerberg's best friend at Harvard and co-founder of Facebook, before the relationship started to sour.

The now-famous dispute ended with an out of court settlement that saw Saverin's status as co-founder affirmed and left him with a reported 5% stake in the company. Forbes estimates Saverin's wealth at $1.6 billion (£1bn).

After avoiding the spotlight for some time - so much so that we couldn't even get a picture of him - Saverin hit the news early this year as it was announced he was lead investor in an $8 million (£5m) round of investing for Silicon Valley start-up Qwiki.

Sean Parker

Thirty-one-year-old Sean Parker already had history in the dot-com revolution, co-founding Napster, among other start-ups, before he began advising the creators of Facebook.

Played by Justin Timberlake in The Social Network, Parker then became the company's first president and is now worth an estimated $1.6 billion (£1bn) according to Forbes.

Peter Thiel 

A man without quite the same rock and roll reputation as Parker is 43-year-old Paypal founder Peter Thiel. A former chess champion, he was rated a master by the US Chess Federation.

Even more impressive is his business acumen, which inspired him to invest $500,000 (£313,000) in Facebook back in 2004.

The rapid success of the site since then will have contributed some way to his $1.5 billion (£938m) fortune, as estimated by Forbes.

Yuri Milner

Another keen chess player, 49-year-old Russian investor Yuri Milner is probably the oldest of those to have made a fortune from Facebook.

Milner, now worth $1 billion (£625m) according to Forbes, made much of his money from his stakes in internet phenomena such as Facebook, Zynga and Groupon.

According to Forbes, his company's $200 million (£125m) stake in Facebook has grown an estimated five-fold since it was purchased in 2009.

Mark Pincus

Creator of the hugely popular FarmVille game, Mark Pincus used the success of Facebook to build his own fortune and this year joined the billionaires club for the first time.

His social gaming company Zynga - which was only founded in 2007 - is also behind other Facebook hits such as MafiaWars and CityVille.

The Social Network Cast and Crew

Forgive us, but our list just wouldn't be complete if we didn't mention last year's 'Facebook film', The Social Network.

Grossing almost $100 million (£62m) in the US box office alone last year, the film is set to sell plenty more in DVDs after receiving massive acclaim and heaps of awards since its release.

Add to that the career boost the likes of Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield will have received from the film's success, and we don't think it's too much of a stretch to suggest that plenty of people involved in the film have done pretty well for themselves.

Source: MSN Money