Famous American Internet Entrepreneurs

The founder and CEO of the multi-national technology company Amazon, Jeff Bezos is the wealthiest man in the world. Jeff, who left his lucrative job at an investment firm to fulfil his entrepreneurial ambition, also owns the newspaper, The Washington Post, and its affiliate publications along with a spaceflight company, Blue Origin.

The co-founder and CEO of the popular social networking website, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg is also amongst the richest men in the world. Fascinated by computer since his early life, Zuckerberg co-created TheFacebook while still in college and later even dropped out to devote more time to it. At 23, he became the youngest self-made billionaire in history at that time.

As the co-founder and CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey continues to influence the lives of millions around the world. Also a well-known philanthropist, Dorsey is credited with funding 600 public school projects in Missouri. A prolific donator, Jack Dorsey has donated $24 million as part of various relief efforts. He also donated $10 million to Boston University.

Jawed Karim is an American Internet entrepreneur and software engineer. Karim is credited with co-founding one of the most popular online video-sharing platforms, YouTube. He is also credited with uploading the first YouTube video named Me at the zoo. During his time working at PayPal, Jawed Karim had designed many of the company's core components, such as its anti-Internet-fraud system.

Travis Kalanick is an American businessman. He is credited with founding Red Swoosh, a content delivery network, and Uber, a technology company. He resigned as the CEO of Uber in 2017 when the company was criticized for several unethical practices, including sexual harassment.

Napster co-founder Sean Parker was the first president of Facebook. He invested in Spotify and has been associated with Plaxo, Airtime.com, and Brigade. He created the Facebook app Causes, actively donates to cancer research, owns the Parker Foundation, and was listed on Time’s Healthcare 50 for his medical philanthropic efforts.

Dustin Moskovitz is an Internet entrepreneur. He is credited with co-founding the popular social networking service, Facebook. In 2008, he co-founded a web and mobile application called Asana after quitting Facebook. One of the youngest self-made billionaires of all time, Dustin Moskovitz is also renowned for his philanthropic activities; he co-founded a philanthropic organization called Good Ventures in 2011.

Peter Thiel is a German-American venture capitalist and entrepreneur. As the co-founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel redefined the way online payments and online money transfers work in the United States and most Asian countries. He also played a major role in the development of Facebook as its first outside investor.

Jerry Yang is a Taiwanese-American billionaire internet entrepreneur, computer programmer, and venture capitalist. Yang is credited with co-founding Yahoo! Inc. where he also served as the CEO from 2007 to 2009. Jerry Yang is also credited with founding a venture capital firm named AME Cloud Ventures.

Tony Hsieh showed his entrepreneurial spirit since his Harvard days, when he managed a pizza delivery outlet for his dorm. He later founded the Las Vegas-based online shoe and clothing retailer Zappos. He tragically died from smoke inhalation at a house fire during Thanksgiving, shortly before turning 47.

The CEO of Dropbox, a cloud storage company he co-established with his MIT classmate Arash Ferdowsi, Drew Houston was named one of America's Richest Entrepreneurs Under 40 by Forbes in 2016. He later also became part of Facebook’s board of directors. He has worked for immigration and education reform, too.

Daniel M. Lewin was an American–Israeli entrepreneur and mathematician best remembered for co-founding the popular internet company Akamai Technologies. On September 11, 2001, Lewin became the first victim of the September 11 attacks when he was stabbed to death onboard American Airlines Flight 11 by one of the hijackers.