What Is Eduardo Saverin Doing Now? Inside the Life of Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook Foe
Published Nov. 22 2023, 9:20 a.m. ET
The Gist:
- Eduardo Saverin co-founded Facebook.
- He's currently a wealthy angel investor.
- Mark Zuckerberg ousted Eduardo from the company.
Social media was totally transformed by the emergence of Facebook, and Mark Zuckerberg often gets all the credit ... except he wasn't the only one who made the site possible.
Eduardo Saverin is an angel investor, meaning he's known to supply large amounts of money to get people's projects off the ground. Of course, he makes some money when things go well then, too.
"As a 21-year-old college student, I made the first seed investment into Facebook with the majority of my life savings. I am thankful and humbled to have played a part in Facebook’s remarkable transition from a then one-college specific social network to the most ubiquitous social utility in the world today," he wrote on his LinkedIn.
As a co-founder of the site, he owned $2 billion worth of shares of Facebook in 2012.
Where is Eduardo Saverin now?
Eduardo has now moved passed the wild ride that was getting Facebook off the ground. "Today, through my venture capital firm, B Capital Group, I have the pleasure of working with and investing in entrepreneurs who are looking to change the world," he recapped on LinkedIn.
"As an investor and mentor, I work closely with an array of companies of all sizes and stages, from all parts of the world, that share one common thread: passion for cross-platform people-centric innovation with pan-global ambitions," he added.
Otherwise, the business mogul's page is relatively blank. It announces that he graduated from Harvard, co-founded Facebook, and is involved with his new investment company.
Luckily, Forbes is keeping track of him. According to his profile on the publication, "he still derives most of his wealth from his small but valuable stake in Meta." (Meta, of course, is what was previously called the Facebook company.)
However, that doesn't mean he isn't successful in his new projects. B Capital has "$6.5 billion in assets under management."
Currently, he ranks as the #1 wealthiest person in Singapore. As for his personal life, Eduardo is also married to Elaine Andriejanssen and has one child.
"On my spare time, I cannot get myself to stop playing chess and reading up on meteorology, amongst other things," he notes on his LinkedIn.
Why did Mark Zuckerberg screw over Eduardo?
Mark and Eduardo have a tense history where Mark ousted his co-founder from the company in a sneaky way. Much of this story was documented in the movie The Social Network, but it's important to note that the movie is from Eduardo's perspective as a result of the litigation they were going through at the time.
The pair had disagreements in their general management style which started a bit of a feud. This included aspects of the site itself and how they treated their employees. As their business differences grew, Mark decided it was time for him to fully take over. He persuaded Eduardo to give up his voting rights in the company.
This left Mark in charge and he started to issue more shares of the company in the market. By doing so, he caused all existing shares to be worth less, diluting Eduardo's portfolio. However, this move helped the value of Mark's own shares alongside Sean Parker and Dustin Moskowit.
Despite all the drama and lawsuits, Eduardo seems to have moved on. "I have only good things to say about Mark, there are no hard feelings between us," he told Veja.