

One of them was an early social network called NamesDatabase, which provided a way for people to find old friends with whom they had lost contact.
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After returning to MIT for a graduate degree, he launched a series of new projects, taking a scattergun approach. The culture at MIT, where he spent a lot of time around students starting their own companies, only reinforced this natural resolve.Īlthough his first venture was not a success, Weinberg says he learned a few valuable lessons that set the tone for what was to come.

In middle school, he coded his own bulletin board system, and in high school he had a side job helping businesses connect to the web and solve other IT issues. Weinberg says he has had an entrepreneurial streak from an early age. He was in a hurry because he was eager to launch his first business, an education technology platform that sought to involve parents more closely in the schooling process.

Weinberg also left his college early, but only because he finished his four-year degree a year ahead of schedule. The likes of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and others have made a noble tradition of dropping out of prestigious universities. In most contexts, “college dropout” is deployed as a pejorative term, but not so in the world of technology. (Image credit: DuckDuckGo) An entrepreneurial streak Gabriel Weinberg, founder and CEO of DuckDuckGo. But now, we’re beginning to see some pushback.” “There’s a lot more polarization on the web due to filter bubbles and there’s also a lot of manipulative advertising that can lead to discrimination, propaganda and commercial exploitation. “They don’t appreciate the size of the profiles created by technology companies, and how they are being used not just to place ads all around them, but to determine the content they see online.” “Many people don’t understand how much they are tracked and manipulated online,” he said. But when the perils of surveillance capitalism became apparent, his vision was clarified. Safeguarding data privacy on the web was not the original raison d'être for DuckDuckGo, Weinberg told us, it was more about building something user-centric. The company’s ambition is to help people defend against the predatory tracking technologies that underpin the advertising models of Google, Facebook and other web titans. Weinberg is the founder of DuckDuckGo, which is best known for its private search engine, but now provides a suite of privacy-centric services. But not Gabriel Weinberg, who is patiently twirling his sling in anticipation of an opportunity to bring down the internet’s Goliath. Some might think it impossible to overthrow a company in this position, especially in its core areas of business. Most importantly, it has a vice-like grip on many of the markets in which it operates, particularly browsers and search. Google benefits from almost every advantage any company could ever hope for it has the most advanced technology, broadest talent pool, greatest lobbying power and some of the deepest pockets.
