Who was the first president of Facebook?

Sean Parker was Facebook’s first president. He joined the young company in 2004, only a few months after Facebook launched at Harvard, and helped shape its early business direction.

Parker was already well known in Silicon Valley as the co-founder of Napster, the pioneering music file-sharing service. Before joining Facebook, he had also been involved with Plaxo and had experience advising Friendster. He met Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin after seeing the early social-networking site through a friend.

As president, Parker helped persuade Peter Thiel to become Facebook’s first major outside investor. He also negotiated an early investment arrangement that helped Zuckerberg retain control through a majority of the company’s board seats. Parker is often credited with recognizing Facebook’s larger potential when others still viewed it as a college website.

Parker left the presidency in 2005 after a drug-related arrest, though he remained influential in Facebook’s early history. He is sometimes confused with Zuckerberg, who was the company’s co-founder and CEO, or with Dustin Moskovitz, an early co-founder. The title “first president” specifically belongs to Sean Parker.