• Andrew McCollum is an almost 39 year-old Caucasian software and web developer, graphic designer, computer scientist, entrepreneur, investor and businessman.
• He was one of the original founders of Facebook, creating the logo and the iconic blue colour.
• He is an angel investor, trading cash for equity in start-up companies.
• He is the CEO of Philo Inc., an internet television company.
• He is estimated to have a net worth of $20 million in 2019.
Short Info
| Date Of Birth | September 4, 1983 |
Who is Andrew McCollum?
Born under the sign of Capricorn on the 26th of December 1979, in California, USA, Andrew McCollum is an almost 39 year-old Caucasian software and web developer, graphic designer, computer scientist, entrepreneur, investor and businessman. He owes his significant fame to the fact that he’s one of the five original founders of Facebook. After leaving the social network management team, he started down his own path, and made an even bigger name for himself, and hence can often be seen in business and computer science-related news around the globe. He’s had a multitude of successes over the course of his career since 2004.
Early life: Destined for greatness
Andrew was raised apparently an only child right where he was born, by his parents David and Sally McCollum, whose professions are unknown. During his early years, McCollum showed great interest in the rising phenomenon of technology at the time, as he entered university with considerable knowledge in the field he studied. It’s thus believed that he had a tendency to learn about computers and IT in general completely of his own accord. As for his education, Andrew attended an unspecified high school in his birth city, from where he matriculated in 1997.
He then enrolled into world-famous Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to study his passion. He paused his education in 2004, but ultimately resumed it to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in computer science, followed up in 2007 by a graduate degree in instruction from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Career: An esteemed student
McCollum’s first professional experience, which later turned out to be the most important one, was helping with the development of Facebook in 2004. As both he and Mark Zuckerberg were attending Harvard at the time, and Andrew had a reputation for excelling at graphic design even as a student, Mark asked him to work on the Facebook prototype. Andrew created the logo of Facebook, chose the famous blue color, and most of the specific icons found on the site were also done by him.
As this project required a lot of time and effort, he had to pause studying at Harvard during this time, but after he was done, he still didn’t return to college. What came next was his collaboration with another Facebook co-founder, Adam D’Angelo, along with whom he created Wirehog – a friend-to-friend file sharing-program that became integrated into Facebook, developed in the same year as the website.
The significance of Wirehog
While it would be right to say that Wirehog is just another piece of software, it’s crucial to Facebook, as this innovational feature allowed its users to send anything they want to each other, directly through messages, instead of having to use another website for uploading and then sharing the link.
The advent of friend-to-friend transfer meant a great deal to the reliability and popularity of Facebook as a social network, since its utility was practically unprecedented. This achievement brought a significant amount of popularity to Andrew, which later on proved extremely beneficial to his career and net worth.
Moving on from Facebook
Andrew’s departure from the Facebook team was unexpected at the time, seeing as the site’s almost immeasurable increase in popularity meant massive earnings for anyone involved in its development and maintenance. However, McCollum wasn’t satisfied with being a staff member, even though a high ranking one, and returned to Harvard to finish his education. Two years later, he developed and launched a website dedicated to seamless resume creation, which he named JobSpice.
Some years down the road, his interest in investing suddenly grew, eventually placing him into two companies related to this business. The two investing companies are Flybridge Capital Partners and New Enterprise Associates, both of which profit from gradual early investment returns.
To be more specific, Andrew’s calling in this case was as an angel investor, someone who will ‘trade’ their cash for ownership equity or convertible debt very early on, with start-up companies in which most inventors generally don’t choose to believe. This is believed to be Andrew’s primary source of income, and according to his net worth, it seems thet the gambles have been paying off heftily.
Around 2014, he was also declared the new CEO of Philo Inc., an internet television company with headquarters in San Francisco.
Love life: Who is his wife? What was their wedding like?
Andrew’s romantic involvements aren’t something that he likes to keep the public informed about, but everybody knows about his marriage in 2012 to sociologist Gretchen Sisson. The two had been together for some time, possibly dating back to Andrew’s beginnings in Harvard. Their wedding was celebrated in a friendly environment, and with quite a few personalized details. Andrew took the liberty to spice it up the way he knew best, and created the invitations in CoffeeScript – a variation of the JavaScript web-developing language. Apparently they have two children, but details are lacking.
The list of festivities was written in Extensive Markup Language, also known as XML. Ultimately, his colleague Kevin Der, also a programmer, came up with a crossword puzzle containing almost exclusively wedding elements. Andrew and his wife have been together since, and not a single rumor has thus far emerged regarding their stability.
Andrew’s outcry for net neutrality
The term ‘net neutrality’ in general refers to the supposed absolute neutrality of internet network providers when it comes to their users’ browsing choices. As believed by most experts in Andrew’s field, what users personally visit on their devices should be their choice and freedom, and never limited by an internet service provider (ISP).
He argues for this method, using Facebook as an example in a New York Times article, stating that, had the individual universities been adamant in blocking Facebook from being accessed by their students, the network would most likely not exist today. This publication was created in 2017, when there was talk of passing a new net neutrality act, one allowing ISP’s nearly infinite control over the content accessed by their customers.
McCollum’s biography facts
Besides being one of the co-founders of “TheFacebook” (the name by which it originally went upon release), Andrew was also one of its first users. Every Facebook account has its own ID, and those are given in the form of a number higher by one every time someone registers.
Out of the billions of accounts which exist on the social network, Andrew’s has the ID 26 – IDs ranging from 14 to 25, as well as eight, nine and 12 don’t exist, and the first three are Mark Zuckerberg’s, making Andrew Facebook’s eighth user in history. Another one of his biography facts is that he’s regarded as one of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs, which is what earned him a place among the leaders of prestigious New Enterprise Associates.
What is Andrew McCollum’s net worth?
Andrew is said to be approximately $25 million rich in mid-2024, though the nature of his profession implies a constantly changing net worth. McCollum earned his riches by displaying persistent excellence in cyber innovation, and later investing, most of which likely came from well thought-out business engagements with start-up firms. At just 40, he is only now entering the middle of his career, so will very likely make a lot more money.
General Info
| Full Name | Andrew McCollum |
| Date Of Birth | September 4, 1983 |
| Height | 1.93 m |
| Profession | Entrepreneur, Angel investor |
| Education | Harvard University, Harvard Graduate School of Education |
| Nationality | American |
Social profile links
Source: IMDb, Wikipedia
