David Filo (born April 20, 1966) is an American businessman and the co-founder of Yahoo! with Jerry Yang. His Filo Server Program, written in the C programming language, was the server-side software used to dynamically serve variable web pages, called Filo Server Pages, on visits to early versions of the Yahoo! website.
Personal life and education
Filo was born in Wisconsin. At age six, he moved to Moss Bluff, a suburb of Lake Charles, Louisiana. He graduated from Sam Houston High School and then earned a B.S. in computer engineering at Tulane University (through the Dean's Honor Scholarship) and an M.S. at Stanford University.[4]
In 2005 he gave $30 million to his alma mater, Tulane University, for use in its School of Engineering.[5]
Filo is married to photographer and teacher Angela Buenning.[6]
Filo and his wife launched Yellow Chair Foundation in 2000, helped in the launch of Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellowship in 2008 and have endowed professorships in engineering and education. In 2013, they helped create Imagine K12, which invests in education technology companies.[7]
In December 2014, Forbes estimated Filo to be worth $3.8 billion, ranking him the 580th-richest person in the world.[5] As of 2017, he is ranked 564th.[8]
Career
In February 1994, he co-created with Jerry Yang an Internet website called "Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web", consisting of a directory of other websites. It was renamed "Yahoo!" (an exclamation). Yahoo! became very popular, and Filo and Yang realized the business potential and co-founded Yahoo! Inc.[9]
Yahoo! started off as a web portal with a web directory providing an extensive range of products and services for various online activities. It is now one of the leading internet brands and, due to partnerships with telecommunications firms, has one of the most trafficked networks on the internet.[10]
References
- David Filo. Yahoo! management team.
- ^ peopleandprofiles.com Archived January 2, 2011, at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ "Yahoo! 2011 Proxy Statement" (PDF). Retrieved 28 July 2011.
- ^ David Filo
- ^ "David Filo". Forbes. October 17, 2014.
- ^ a b "Forbes 400 Richest Americans: #292 David Filo". Forbes. March 2013.
- ^ Another billionaire drops Archived December 5, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ The Internet Hierarchy As A Hobby By David Filo. Eyerys.com
- ^ "The World's Billionaires". Forbes. Retrieved 2017-05-24.
- ^ Yahoo! Inc. – Company History. yhoo.client.shareholder.com
- ^ "Most Popular Sites 2012: Alexa Ranks The 500 Most-Visited Websites," Huffington Post, August 9, 2012