This story is available exclusively to Business Insider
subscribers. Become an Insider
and start reading now.
Have an account? Log in .
xtof via Flickr
Facebook's earliest employees, like Mark Zuckerberg, Sean Parker and Eduardo Saverin, need no introduction.
You may not have heard of the others, but all of them left a valuable mark.
They were responsible for everything you've come to love, like the photo app, the ability to tag friends, and even Facebook's blue/white color scheme.
Many of Facebook's first employees are no longer at the company. Some left to join reputable startups like Twitter; others started their own companies like Quora and YouTube.
Those who remained at Facebook now have executive positions.
Out of the first 20 employees , only two were women.
Gilles Mischler built and designed Facebook's IT infrastructure from the ground up.
LinkedIn
Employed by Facebook from: June 2005 - May 2010
Position at Facebook: SiteOps Engineer
Current Company/Position: Network Engineer at Nokia
Source: LinkedIn
You can thank engineer Scott Marlette for being able to visually stalk all of your friends. He created Facebook's photo application.
Twitter
Employed by Facebook from: June 2005 - January 2010
Position at Facebook: Engineer, Product Manager
Current Company/Position: Chief Pilot at Idea Man
Source: LinkedIn, Flickr
Dan Neff had a short, 5 month stint as one of Facebook's first employees and was responsible for rolling out new site features.
re_birf via Flickr
Employed by Facebook from: May 2005 - October 2005
Position at Facebook: Build/Release Engineer
Current Company/Position: Release/Operations Lead at Adobe Systems
Source: LinkedIn
Aaron Sittig was brought on by Sean Parker. He created the concept of tagging friends in Facebook pictures.
Rivalee via Flickr
Employed by Facebook from: May 2005 - Present
Position at Facebook: Design Strategy Lead
Current Company/Position: Still employed by Facebook
Source: LinkedIn, The Facebook Effect , Gigaom
Nick Heyman was in charge of handling Facebook's explosive traffic and was there when the site grew from 3 million to 13 million users and beyond.
*Image not available
Employed by Facebook from: April 2005 - January 2007
Position at Facebook: Director of Operations
Current Company/Position: Manager of Operations at Twitter
Source: LinkedIn , Force10 Networks
Naomi Gleit was tasked with making sure "literally everyone in the world was on the site."
TechLatina
Employed by Facebook from: April 2005
Position at Facebook: Product Manager on Growth
Current Company/Position: N/A
Source: LinkedIn, Newsweek
Steve King directed Facebook's media sales and was responsible for getting the first big advertisers on board like Panasonic and Microsoft.
LinkedIn
Employed by Facebook from: April 2005 - July 2006
Position at Facebook: Director, Media Sales
Current Company/Position: VP Sales at LocaMedia
Source: LinkedIn, Crunchbase
Tricia Black worked at Y2M, a firm that sold ads for college magazines. Eduardo Saverin set up a meeting with Black, who began selling ads for Facebook and eventually became the first VP of Sales.
*Image not available
The Mirror
Employed by Facebook from: March 2005 - June 2006
Position at Facebook: VP, Advertising Sales
Current Company/Position: Self-employed consultant
Source: LinkedIn
Steve Chen left Facebook after a few short months to start YouTube.
Twettey.com
Employed by Facebook from: For a few months in 2005
Position at Facebook: Senior Software Engineer
Current Company/Position: Cofounder of YouTube
Source: LinkedIn
Next to Zuckerberg, Kevin Colleran has been the longest-serving Facebook employee. He lived with Zuckerberg in the 2004 Palo Alto summer sublet.
Employed by Facebook from: April 2005 - Present
Position at Facebook: Global Partnerships
Current Company/Position: Still employed by Facebook
Source: LinkedIn, HBR
Matt Cohler was brought on by Peter Thiel and was formerly one of the founding members of LinkedIn.
Cohler, on the left
Employed by Facebook from: February 2005 - October 2008
Position at Facebook: VP Product Management
Current Company/Position: General Partner at Benchmark Capital
Source: LinkedIn, Venturebeat
Ezra Callahan had been roommates with Sean Parker and was hired to "whittle away" at Eduardo Saverin's CFO responsibilities.
Whoownsfacebook
Employed by Facebook from: December 2004 - July 2010
Position at Facebook: Manager of Internal Communications, Product Manager
Current Company/Position: N/A
Source: LinkedIn, The Facebook Effect
Sean Parker was an early employee at Napster and was founding president of Facebook.
Flickr/Andrew Mager
Employed by Facebook from: June 2004 - January 2006
Position at Facebook: President
Current Company/Position: Founder/Chairman at Causes on Facebook and Managing Partner at Founders Fund
Source: LinkedIn
Taner Halicioglu was Facebook's first "real" employee outside of the founders. He built out the entire initial hardware infrastructure.
UCSD
Employed by Facebook from: October 2004 - November 2009
Position at Facebook: Senior Software/Operations Engineer
Current Company/Position: Lead Reliability Engineer, Battle.net at Blizzard Entertainment
Source: LinkedIn, UCSD
Eduardo Saverin was a Facebook cofounder and its first CFO. He famously sued Mark Zuckerberg and the two reached a settlement.
Employed by Facebook from: February 2004
Position at Facebook: Cofounder
Current Company/Position: Angel investor
Source: LinkedIn
Chris Hughes cofounded Facebook and served as the site's spokesman. He later coordinated all social networking aspects of Obama's 2008 campaign.
Employed by Facebook from: February 2004
Position at Facebook: Cofounder
Current Company/Position: Executive Director at Jumo
Source: LinkedIn
Andrew McCollum designed Facebook's first logo and worked on a side project with Zuckerberg, Wirehog.
Wownesia
Employed by Facebook from: February 2004 - September 2006
Position at Facebook: Engineer, Cofounder
Current Company/Position:
Source: LinkedIn, Facebook
Dustin Moskovitz, Facebook's first CTO, was Mark Zuckerberg's roommate. The two dropped out of Harvard together to move to California and work on Facebook.
Flickr, davemc500hats
Employed by Facebook from: February 2004 - November 2009
Position at Facebook: Cofounder
Current Company/Position: Cofounder at Asana
Source: LinkedIn, Forbes
Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook. The blue design of the site is partially because of his red-green color blindness.
Employed by Facebook from: February 2004 - Present
Position at Facebook: Cofounder
Current Company/Position: Facebook
Source: CNN
BONUS: Adam D'Angelo was high school friends with Mark Zuckerberg and eventually left Facebook to found Quora.
Employed by Facebook from: November 2006 - June 2008. Although he technically wasn't one of the first 20 employees, D'Angleo was one of Zuckerberg's best high school friends and worked on the social network long before he was on the payroll.
Position at Facebook: CTO
Current Company/Position: Founder of Quora
Source: LinkedIn, Crunchbase
BONUS: James Pereira was Facebook's 7th employee, but no one seems to know what has happened to him
*Image not available
Employed by Facebook from: July 2004 - August 2007
Position at Facebook: Engineer
Current Company/Position: N/A
Source: LinkedIn , Quora
Now see who's a Facebook billionaire:
