When Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook married his longtime girlfriend, Priscilla Chan, recently, one of the world's youngest billionaires was off the market. But that doesn't mean that there is a dearth of eligible singles in Silicon Valley.
Perhaps nowhere on earth are there more young, bright, wildly overcompensated hyperachievers who are currently unattached. The following is an admittedly unscientific roundup of some of the unmarried tech executives who inspire the most buzz in Silicon Valley and its East Coast counterpart, Silicon Alley.
Pete Cashmore, chief executive, Mashable
Inc. magazine tagged Cashmore - 26 and with a net worth estimated as high as $95 million - as "the Brad Pitt of the blogosphere".
Gawker called him "the planet's sexiest geek".
He currently sees Lisa Bettany, a photographer and entrepreneur. And like a matinee idol, he has a sultry air that has even become an in-joke among techies.
He started Mashable in his bedroom in Aberdeen, Scotland, at age 19. Mashable now attracts more than 20 million visitors a month.
Jack Dorsey, co-founder, Twitter & Square
Dorsey, 36, has gone from bike messenger to internet superstar, net worth estimated at $650 million, all on the strength of a simple idea that turned out to be one of the most intoxicating time-sucks since television.
Along with money came the trappings of fame: the Prada suits, the A-list friends ( Ashton Kutcher, Alyssa Milano). Dorsey tends to keep his romance private, although he did discuss a recent relationship with Sofiane Sylve, a principal dancer with the San Francisco Ballet.
Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos.com
Like Zuckerberg, Hsieh went to Harvard and favours hoodies. He made a fortune at a very young age (at 24, he sold a company to Microsoft for $265 million) then an even bigger one later (in 2009, Amazon snatched up Zappos for $1 billion).
Sample this golden quote from the 38-year-old online shoe and clothing retailer: "I'm not opposed to marriage.
But statistically, if half of all marriages end in divorce, and of the ones that remain married many are unhappily married, the odds are stacked against you."
Larry Ellison, CEO, Oracle
At 67, Ellison might not fit everyone's definition of "eligible".
But since his fourth marriage - to Melanie Craft, a romance novelist a quarter-century his junior - ended in 2010, the tech pioneer (estimated net worth: $36 billion) is back on the market.
Ellison has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in a yacht-racing team and scored an America's Cup victory in 2010, and few think he will be out of the dating game for long.
Salar Kamangar, senior vice-president, YouTube
When a network dating show recently approached Kamangar to appear as a contestant, it didn't get far. Kamangar is as private as he is eligible. But you can understand the network's interest.
Kamangar, 35, joined the early team at Google as a gofer and now runs one of the most popular web properties on the planet. The Tehran-born studied biology at Stanford, and took overYouTube in 2010, after playing a key role in developing AdWords, the advertising system that has generates most of Google's revenues. Gawker ran an item a few years ago linking him toIvanka Trump.
Aaron Levie, co-founder, BOX
The 27-year-old co-founder of the cloudcomputing storage company played ringmaster at the company's first conference, BoxWorks, showing up in orange sneakers and firing up a crowd of hundreds with motivational pronouncements before handing out free Motorola Xoom tablets for everyone.
While Levie, who has a longtime girlfriend, hasn't made an enormous killing yet, it is just a matter of time.
Matt Mullenweg, founder, Wordpress & Automattic He made a fortune in the early days of blogging by giving future bloggers the tools they needed to chase their online dreams:
WordPress, the open-source content management system used by nearly 15% of the top million websites worldwide.
Still only 28, the boyish blonde with the snowboarder stubble is now worth an estimated $40 million. He remains coy on the subject of dating.
Matt Cohler, Facebook employee No. 7, now general partner at Benchmark Capital
Since Cohler, now 35, struck out trying to make it as a saxophonist, the Manhattan-raised Yalie has been on a winning streak. He was one of the first employees at LinkedIn and then at Facebook. (His Facebook shares were valued at a reported $680 million before that stock's slide.) As he said, "I am very aware that I'm one of the luckiest people who ever lived." Except - so far - in love.
Last year, he and his longtime girlfriend broke up, and he now finds himself looking for company in the brownstone that he recently bought in downtown Manhattan, which he has decorated with works by Richard Avedon and Vienna Secession-period furniture.
Perhaps nowhere on earth are there more young, bright, wildly overcompensated hyperachievers who are currently unattached. The following is an admittedly unscientific roundup of some of the unmarried tech executives who inspire the most buzz in Silicon Valley and its East Coast counterpart, Silicon Alley.
Pete Cashmore, chief executive, Mashable
Inc. magazine tagged Cashmore - 26 and with a net worth estimated as high as $95 million - as "the Brad Pitt of the blogosphere".
Gawker called him "the planet's sexiest geek".
He currently sees Lisa Bettany, a photographer and entrepreneur. And like a matinee idol, he has a sultry air that has even become an in-joke among techies.
He started Mashable in his bedroom in Aberdeen, Scotland, at age 19. Mashable now attracts more than 20 million visitors a month.
Jack Dorsey, co-founder, Twitter & Square
Dorsey, 36, has gone from bike messenger to internet superstar, net worth estimated at $650 million, all on the strength of a simple idea that turned out to be one of the most intoxicating time-sucks since television.
Along with money came the trappings of fame: the Prada suits, the A-list friends ( Ashton Kutcher, Alyssa Milano). Dorsey tends to keep his romance private, although he did discuss a recent relationship with Sofiane Sylve, a principal dancer with the San Francisco Ballet.
Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos.com
Like Zuckerberg, Hsieh went to Harvard and favours hoodies. He made a fortune at a very young age (at 24, he sold a company to Microsoft for $265 million) then an even bigger one later (in 2009, Amazon snatched up Zappos for $1 billion).
Sample this golden quote from the 38-year-old online shoe and clothing retailer: "I'm not opposed to marriage.
But statistically, if half of all marriages end in divorce, and of the ones that remain married many are unhappily married, the odds are stacked against you."
Larry Ellison, CEO, Oracle
At 67, Ellison might not fit everyone's definition of "eligible".
But since his fourth marriage - to Melanie Craft, a romance novelist a quarter-century his junior - ended in 2010, the tech pioneer (estimated net worth: $36 billion) is back on the market.
Ellison has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in a yacht-racing team and scored an America's Cup victory in 2010, and few think he will be out of the dating game for long.
Salar Kamangar, senior vice-president, YouTube
When a network dating show recently approached Kamangar to appear as a contestant, it didn't get far. Kamangar is as private as he is eligible. But you can understand the network's interest.
Kamangar, 35, joined the early team at Google as a gofer and now runs one of the most popular web properties on the planet. The Tehran-born studied biology at Stanford, and took overYouTube in 2010, after playing a key role in developing AdWords, the advertising system that has generates most of Google's revenues. Gawker ran an item a few years ago linking him toIvanka Trump.
Aaron Levie, co-founder, BOX
The 27-year-old co-founder of the cloudcomputing storage company played ringmaster at the company's first conference, BoxWorks, showing up in orange sneakers and firing up a crowd of hundreds with motivational pronouncements before handing out free Motorola Xoom tablets for everyone.
While Levie, who has a longtime girlfriend, hasn't made an enormous killing yet, it is just a matter of time.
Matt Mullenweg, founder, Wordpress & Automattic He made a fortune in the early days of blogging by giving future bloggers the tools they needed to chase their online dreams:
WordPress, the open-source content management system used by nearly 15% of the top million websites worldwide.
Still only 28, the boyish blonde with the snowboarder stubble is now worth an estimated $40 million. He remains coy on the subject of dating.
Matt Cohler, Facebook employee No. 7, now general partner at Benchmark Capital
Since Cohler, now 35, struck out trying to make it as a saxophonist, the Manhattan-raised Yalie has been on a winning streak. He was one of the first employees at LinkedIn and then at Facebook. (His Facebook shares were valued at a reported $680 million before that stock's slide.) As he said, "I am very aware that I'm one of the luckiest people who ever lived." Except - so far - in love.
Last year, he and his longtime girlfriend broke up, and he now finds himself looking for company in the brownstone that he recently bought in downtown Manhattan, which he has decorated with works by Richard Avedon and Vienna Secession-period furniture.
