Facebook co-founder and former Mark Zuckerberg roommate
Dustin Moskovitz is by many accounts the world's youngest self-made
billionaire. But according to CBS.com the 27-year-old isn't sipping champagne
in the Caribbean. Instead he's thrown
himself back into San Francisco's startup mix, even as Facebook's looming IPO
seems likely to send his wealth spiraling even higher.
Moskovitz and his friend Justin Rosenstein, a former
Facebooker himself worth $150 million, head a company called Asana, which just
launched the first paid version of its online project management service.
During a recent interview at their inconspicuous Mission District offices, the
pair said they come to work every day because, their fortunes already made,
they still have to do something with their lives.
"When we think of work, we think of work as an act of
service, as an act of love for humanity," said Rosenstein, 28. Added Moskovitz: "If we were just
retired, we wouldn't be serving anyone."
While such idealistic sentiments might sound too easy coming from two
guys who never have to worry about money again, they both do keep working even
though they'd never have to again. And like Zuckerberg himself they seem
uninterested in the flash and status-hoarding that great wealth makes possible.
What sets them apart, they acknowledge, is their absolute
freedom to pursue their particular vision of how to change the world. And they
seem to have no doubt that their software will do just that. After all, as some
of Facebook's earliest engineers, they've seen their code change the world once
already….
Whether Asana's world-changing potential exceeds that of
competitors in the crowded project and task management software marketplace
remains to be seen. Like other similar products, their software lets users set
up Web-based to-do lists that any group focused on a common goal can use to
assign jobs and keep track of what gets done...
