Santa Monica, California
United States
| Status: | Single |
| Here for: | Friends, Networking |
| Hometown: | Escondido / San Diego |
| Occupation: | Former 1st Friend Retired |
| Education: | UC Berkeley (BA English & Rhetoric) UCLA (MA Film) |
| Zodiac: | Scorpio |
| Smoke / Drink: | No / No |
| Body Type: | 5'11" |
General: Internet, Movies, Reading, Karaoke, Philosophy, Travel, Photography, Surfing, Architecture, Golf, Building alternate communities
Music: Beatles, Radiohead, Weezer, Oasis, The Doors, Sex Pistols, Jackson 5, Teenage Fanclub
Movies: Kubrick, Coppola, Spielberg, Zhang Yimou
Books: Nietzsche, George Orwell, Milan Kundera, Laurens van der Post
Heroes: George Orwell, Friedrich Nietzsche, Lee Kuan Yew, My Mom
Hi, I'm Tom. For a few glorious years I was everyone's first friend on MySpace. That grainy little photo on the left? Yeah, that's the one. I never changed it. If I did it would break the internet.
I co-founded MySpace in August 2003 with my friend Chris DeWolfe. We wanted a place where people could be whoever they wanted to be — fake names, band pages, glitter graphics, the whole messy beautiful internet. No "real name" police.
Born November 8, 1970 in California. Grew up in Escondido. As a teenager I went by Lord Flathead and was a bit of a computer explorer (okay, hacker). At 14 I got into Chase Manhattan Bank's systems just for fun. The FBI paid my family a visit, took the computer, and that was that — I was a minor.
Studied English & Rhetoric at UC Berkeley, then Film at UCLA. Sang in a San Francisco band called Swank. Lived in Taiwan for a while after graduation. Worked at XDrive (digital storage) where I met Chris. When that went under we started ResponseBase, a direct marketing company, and sold it to eUniverse in 2002. From there MySpace was born as a side project that became everything.
August 15, 2003 — we launched. I became the default first friend so every new user instantly had someone in their Top 8 and could learn how the friend system worked. By 2005 the site was massive. News Corp bought Intermix (our parent) for $580 million. I stayed on as president until 2009.
"Before the acquisition, I could do whatever I wanted. Now it takes more time to get people to agree on things."
In 2009/2010 I stepped away. By then Facebook had taken the crown and MySpace was changing. I retired in my late 30s. Discovered landscape photography at Burning Man in 2011 and got completely hooked. Since then I've been traveling the world — Hawaii (part-time home in Oahu), Iceland, Thailand, the Maldives, China, New Zealand, the Philippines — taking photos, surfing, exploring architecture, playing golf, and just living.
Still use the same profile picture on Instagram (@myspacetom). Still the same smile. Still happy to be your friend.
Anyone who still has a soft spot for custom HTML profiles, Top 8 drama, and the days when the internet felt a little more personal and a little more weird.
We did it, dude. Still can't believe it.
omg tom u r so hot!!! add me back plz!!! my top 8 is empty without u
Thanks for letting bands upload their own music. Changed everything.
The only social network founder who retired and actually enjoyed life. Legend.
Thanks for being my first friend, Tom. Never forgot.