Facebook co-founder and Asana CEO Dustin Moskovitz seems to be glad he's not involved in the social networking business anymore (FB)

November 30, 2018

Facebook co-founder and Asana CEO Dustin Moskovitz seems to be glad he's not involved in the social networking business anymore (FB)

Dustin Moskovitz

Dustin Moskovitz was one of four Facebook co-founders and is currently the CEO of Asana, a cloud-based software service that lets workers collaborate on projects and assign tasks.
On Thursday, Asana announced it raised a $50 million Series E, bringing its valuation to $1.5 billion.
Moskovitz described the upsides of working in enterprise tech in an interview with Business Insider: "I do think it’s nice to have a straightforward business model where you create something valuable for companies and they pay you for it. There’s a lot fewer rough edges."
When asked his thoughts on Facebook's current situation, especially as it relates to privacy issues, Moskovitz said: "My energy and attention is pretty much 100% consumed with [Asana] so I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about consumer net."

Dustin Moskovitz, one of four Facebook co-founders and roommate to Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard, seems to be glad he's out of the social networking game.

In an interview with Business Insider on Wednesday, Moskovitz described the upsides of working in enterprise tech, rather than consumer tech. Moskovitz has been the CEO of Asana — a cloud-based software service that lets workers collaborate on projects and assign tasks — since leaving Facebook in 2008.

“I do think it’s nice to have a straightforward business model where you create something valuable for companies and they pay you for it," Moskovitz told us. "There’s a lot fewer rough edges, I guess, since we’re not a content platform. We’re really providing infrastructure."

Those "rough edges" have become increasingly rough for Facebook and his former roommate this year with the Cambridge Analytica scandal, reports of genocide in Myanmar, a data breach of 30 million users, and more.

The problematic position Facebook finds itself in today — a company that makes its money from user data in a social climate where more people are increasingly concerned about their privacy — is perhaps why Moskovitz has stayed at Asana and in the enterprise space for more than a decade.

When asked his thoughts on Facebook's current situation, especially as it relates to privacy issues, Moskovitz deflected, saying: "Asana is a fast-growing business. We have 400 employees. My energy and attention is pretty much 100% consumed with this project so I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about consumer net.”

Perhaps that's true.

Asana did just raise a $50 million Series E, bringing its valuation to $1.5 billion. The company is growing internationally — opening up an Australia office next week and a Japan office next year — and says its revenue is growing 90% year-over-year. Moskovitz also tells us Asana plans to increase its team of 400 to 600 by the end of 2019.

But for someone who learned PHP in his dorm room to help build an early version of "thefacebook.com," it's hard to imagine Moskovitz doesn't spend at least some of his time reflecting on the influence, good and bad, of the product he created almost 15 years ago.

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