14 of the most important early Facebook employees - and where they are now

Years employed at Facebook: 2005-2019

Chris Cox joined Facebook in 2005 and was one of the company's earliest employees. The chief technology officer built several of the company's core products, including the News Feed. Cox worked with Zuckerberg for 13 years.

News of his departure broke on March 14 and marks the most significant departure from the company in years.

Source: Business Insider, The New York Times

Years employed at Facebook: 2004-2008

Adam D'Angelo joined Facebook in 2004, and worked at the company for five years as its chief technology officer. He also served as the vice president of engineering, and initially headed the Facebook Platform team building newsfeed and ad targeting infrastructure.

D'Angelo left the company in 2008 to found question-and-answer site Quora alongside another former Facebook employee, Charlie Cheever.

Source: Business Insider, Berggruen Institute, Forbes

Years employed at Facebook: 2007-2011

Palihapitiya joined Facebook in 2007, and worked with the company for four years. While at Facebook, Palihapitiya worked as the vice president for user growth.

Upon leaving the company in 2011, Palihapitiya founded his venture fund, Social Capital. He's also now the co-owner of the Golden State Warriors.

Source: Washington Post, Business Insider

Years employed at Facebook: 2004-2007

One of Mark Zuckerberg's roommates and original founders of Facebook, Chris Hughes worked at the company during its early stages. Hughes became Facebook's spokesperson, and helped get its first press coverage. After graduating from Harvard, he took an official position as the head of the product team at the new Palo Alto headquarters.

After just three years with the company, Hughes transferred his social skills to build the internet presence for President Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, before heading the New Republic for four years. Hughes sold the publication in 2016. He published his book titled "Fair Shot" last year.

Source: Forbes, Fast Company, Business Insider

Years employed at Facebook: 2004-2008

Moskovitz and Zuckerberg were the two founding members to drop out of school and immediately move to Palo Alto, where they established the company's headquarters. During his time at the company, Moskovitz worked as both chief technology officer and vice president of engineering.

After leaving Facebook, he went on to found task management company Asana alongside former Facebook colleague Justin Rosenstein. The Asana CEO also runs philanthropic foundation Good Ventures with his wife.

Source: Bloomberg, Business Insider, Wealth-X, Forbes

Years employed at Facebook: 2006-2010

A former senior platform manager at Facebook, Morin is credited with launching Facebook Connect, allowing users to see friends' activities on other sites across the web.

After his time on Zuckerberg's team, Morin co-founded the now-extinct social media network Path. He also co-founded the fund Slow Ventures with two former Facebook employees.

Source: New York Times, Forbes, TechCrunch, TechCrunch

Years employed at Facebook: 2004-2008

Matt Cohler is notably one of Facebook's first five employees after co-founders Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz moved the company to Silicon Valley. While at Facebook, Cohler headed product development organizations and was considered a special advisor of Zuckerberg's. His official title at the company was vice president of product management.

He left to become a partner of Benchmark Capital. Cohler currently sits on the boards of several key companies, such as Uber, Tinder, and Instagram.

Source: Bloomberg, Business Insider, Wall Street Journal

Years employed at Facebook: 2008-present

Previously an executive at Google, Sheryl Sanberg joined Facebook in 2008 as the company's chief operating officer, a title she still holds today. She was later elected to the company's board of directors in 2012. Sandberg testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee in September 2018 following Facebook's data breaches.

Source: Wall Street Journal, New Yorker, Business Insider, CNBC

Years employed at Facebook: 2007-2009

Yu joined Zuckerberg's team in 2007 after working at YouTube, Sequoia Capital, and Yahoo. As Facebook's chief financial officer, Yu successfully oversaw Microsoft's $240 million deal to invest in the company.

Despite his successful past in tech, Yu is no longer an executive. Instead, he co-owns the San Francisco 49ers and formerly served as the team's president.

Source: Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Stanford, 49ers, TechCrunch

Years employed at Facebook: 2004-2005

Having previously worked on the music-sharing site Napster, Parker joined Facebook as the company's first president when the company was just five months old. As president, Parker successfully landed Zuckerberg his first investor, billionaire co-founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel. He is also responsible for bringing aboard ad salesman Kevin Colleran, who became the company's director of sales.

Today, Parker is a venture capital investor and runs his Parker Foundation.

Source: Variety, Business Insider, Forbes, Business Insider

Years employed at Facebook: 2010-2014

Lessin is a co-founder of the file-sharing service Drop.io, which was acquired by Facebook in 2010. Following this deal, Lessin joined Facebook's product management team as its vice president.

Lessin announced he would be leaving Facebook in 2014, and has since founded Fin, an artificial intelligence company.

Source: Business Insider, Business Insider, TechCrunch, TechCrunch

Years employed at Facebook: 2005-2011

As one of the first 10 employees at Zuckerberg's company, Kevin Colleran is credited with signing Facebook's first major advertisers when he joined the company in 2005 as an ad sales executive. He also created the social network's first branded pages for corporations, and was named director of national sales.

Since leaving Facebook in 2011, his more recent ventures include writing a column for the Wall Street Journal and founding Slow Ventures fund with another Facebook veteran, Dave Morin.

Source: Bloomberg, Business Insider

Years employed at Facebook: 2006-present

Known as "The Boz," Andrew Bosworth is known for building Facebook's Newsfeed platform. Prior to Bosworth's work, Facebook users had to jump from friend's page to friend's page, instead of the streamlined format used today.

Bosworth still serves as Facebook's vice president of AR and VR (augmented and virtual reality).

Source: Business Insider, Wired