Tom Anderson net worth
Number of divisions: 12
What is Tom Anderson’s net worth?
Tom Anderson is an American entrepreneur with a net worth of US$60 million. Tom Anderson was the co-founder of the social networking site Myspace and earned his net worth through a successful real estate investment. He co-founded Myspace with Chris DeWolfe in 2003, and later served as the president of Myspace and the company’s strategic consultant. He became famous because his photos are the default friends of everyone who joins the social network.
early life
Tom Anderson was born on November 8, 1970 in Escondido, California. His father was an entrepreneur, “one crazy idea after another”. At St. Pascual High School, Tom was a hacker under the alias “Lord Flathead”. After he hacked into the computer system of Chase Manhattan Bank, the FBI raided Anderson’s home and confiscated it. Tom’s computer equipment. They did not arrest Anderson because he was only 14 years old, but he was suspended. After graduating from high school, he entered the University of California at Berkeley to study English, and later became the lead singer of the Swank band. Tom moved to Taiwan and then returned to California to attend the Film School at UCLA.
Profession
Tom first came to Myspace to work through a company called eUniverse, which was founded by Internet entrepreneur Brad Greenspan.
In 2000, Anderson worked as a copywriter and product tester at a digital storage company called XDrive. At XDrive, he met future Myspace co-founder Chris DeWolfe. The following year, the company went bankrupt. Tom and Chris soon co-founded ResponseBase, a direct selling company.
At the end of 2002, Tom and Chris sold ResponseBase to eUniverse and became eUniverse employees. The idea behind Myspace was born after the launch of Friendster in 2002. Several people with Friendster accounts are eUniverse employees, and they quickly realized the potential of such a social network. They formed a team and set out to imitate the more popular features of rival social networking sites.
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The idea behind Myspace was born after the launch of Friendster in 2002. Several people with Friendster accounts are eUniverse employees. They quickly realized the potential of this social network. They formed a team and set out to imitate the more popular features of rival social networking sites.
Anderson created the first Myspace page in 2003. After eUniverse became Intermix Media, Myspace became popular. By the summer of 2005, when Myspace was sold to News Corporation, the social network was used by 16 million people every month, and as of January 2006, 200,000 new users had registered every day. By June 2006, Myspace had developed into the most popular social network in the United States and maintained this ranking until it was taken over by Facebook in April 2008. Since then, the popularity of Myspace has declined rapidly. In the heyday of Myspace, the company employed 1,600 employees. After layoffs of 30% in June 2009, this number was reduced to 1,000. By June 2011, further layoffs reduced its scale to 400 employees. In June 2011, Myspace was sold to specific media for $35 million, plus a 5% stake in the specific media. Justin Timberlake also has a small stake in the transaction.
(Photo by Mark Mainz/Getty Images)
News Corp acquisition
By now, most people know that News Corporation acquired Myspace for $580 million. Before the sale, Myspace had been reorganized many times, resulting in a rather complicated pool of equity shareholders. First, the company received $15.3 million in early funding from a company called VantagePoint. Then, in February 2005, Myspace received another $15.5 million from a company called Redpoint. When investing in Redpoint, 25% of the equity was reserved for 6 employees who are considered the founders of Myspace. This group of people included Tom Anderson and Chris De Wolfe, each of whom sold $3 million worth of equity to Red Dot.
However, Redpoint’s investment has a reward-if Redpoint can sell Myspace for more than $125 million in a year, then the founder’s shares will be limited to a valuation of $125 million. This means that when News Corp. acquired Myspace for US$580 million, the six founders received a total of US$30 million.
According to the Wall Street Journal reporter Julia Angwin in the book “Stealing Myspace”, DeWolfe and Anderson each took 10 million U.S. dollars, and the remaining 10 million U.S. dollars was left for the split of the remaining four founders. Both Dewolf and Anderson subsequently signed a two-year $30 million contract with News Corp. In the end, Red Dot made $44.5 million from their $15.5 million investment in less than a year. VantagePoint made a profit of US$139 million from a US$15.3 million investment. In total, between cash out, acquisitions, and salary, Anderson and De Wolfe both received approximately $40 million in revenue from the Myspace joint venture.
Other venture capital
Anderson invested part of his Myspace income in distressed real estate, most notably in Las Vegas, which was reportedly becoming very valuable. He also invested in a Facebook gambling application called RocketFrog. In 2009, Tom made a cameo appearance in Judd Apatow’s movie “Interesting People”, which starred Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen and Leslie Mann. Today, he describes himself as “happily retired.”
personal life
Tom is an active user of other social media platforms such as Reddit, Facebook and Instagram. He is very interested in photography and said that his friend, photographer Trey Ratcliff (Trey Ratcliff) helped him develop his photography skills. Anderson said of his photography: “I don’t necessarily have to try to express nature accurately. I’m trying to create something as beautiful as a painter.” He likes international travel, taking landscape photos in places like Myanmar and Thailand, and accepting Influencive In an interview with .com, he shared: “My passion for photography keeps me traveling. I have multiple homes in multiple cities, but I’m not satisfied with just staying where I am comfortable. I want to continue to create. “Anderson posted his impressive photos on his Instagram account (“myspacetom”), where he has accumulated more than 630,000 followers.
