Together with his college buddy Jerry Yang, David Filo founded the search engine Yahoo! It all started because the two wanted to create a directory to share sites between their friends. As a result, Yahoo! emerged, initially just as an organizational tool for their findings and for others to locate useful sites. This was just the beginning and soon after Yahoo! was involving many Stanford alumni which resulted in the two men creating software to assist in further web management and categorization. The next step was online searches which led to companies wanting to advertise on their site which led to huge growth for Yahoo!, employing over 100 people in a very short time. Today, Yahoo! is still a search engine but comprises other services such as online shopping, dating and more.
Filo has enjoyed much financial success from his Yahoo! creation. Indeed, just four years ago he was said to be worth around $2.9 billion. This puts him at no. 240 of the richest people in the world. He has been kind with his success, five years ago donating $30 million to Tulane University to use in its School of Engineering.
Related Links
David Filo
Marissa A. Mayer
Kenneth A. Goldman