Sunday, April 29, 2012

Facebook billionaire shuns luxury for startup life


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...

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