- Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield and Away President Jen Rubio announced on Monday that they were engaged.
- There are several other leaders in the tech industry who are dating — and married to — prominent venture capitalists, models, athletes, and powerful people.
- These are 15 of the most powerful couples in tech.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
As the singer Grimes, Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s maybe-paramour, might say: We appreciate power.
While some tech leaders like Mark Zuckerberg have been with their partners since college, some notable figures in the tech sector have gravitated toward partners with just as much (or more!) power and pull in their industries.
Most recently, two top executives at $1.4 billion startup Away and soon-to-go-public company Slack announced their engagement. The two tech leaders — Away president Jen Rubio and Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield — posted Monday on Twitter they were engaged, two weeks after Butterfield jokingly proposed to Rubio following news of Away’s latest funding round.
However, there have also been some high-profile splits in the last year that have hit some prominent tech leaders. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie, announced in early January that they were getting a divorce. Elon Musk and Canadian singer Grimes dated for a while, though it’s unclear whether the on-again off-again couple is still together in 2019.
Here are 15 of the top power couples in the tech industry:
SEE ALSO: MacKenzie Bezos just pledged to give away half her fortune during her lifetime, something Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, has avoided doing
Jen Rubio & Stewart Butterfield
Tweet Embed:
//twitter.com/mims/statuses/1133151398030266368?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
For real this time 💗💍 I love you forever @stewart pic.twitter.com/Dt0Yd6syDt
Who they are: Rubio is the cofounder and president of luggage startup Away, and Butterfield in the cofounder and CEO of work messaging platform Slack.
Their backstory: The relationship between Rubio and Butterfield has flew under the radar, but it came under the spotlight in May when Butterfield jokingly proposed to Rubio on Twitter. Butterfield’s Twitter proposal followed news that Away had landed a $1.4 billion valuation, and the Slack CEO joked he wasn’t “just a goldigger.”
Butterfield and Rubio both acknowledged the proposal was a joke, after a few hours. However, it seems Butterfield had apparently been waiting for Memorial Day weekend to propose — for real, this time — to Rubio.
Evan Spiegel & Miranda Kerr
Who they are: Spiegel is the cofounder and CEO of Snap Inc., Snapchat’s parent company. Kerr is one of the highest-earning models in the world and founder of wellness company KORA Organics.
Their backstory: The couple started dating in 2015, and got married in May 2017. They have one son who was born in May 2018, and they just confirmed they’re now expecting their second child together.
Read more: Snap CEO Evan Spiegel and supermodel Miranda Kerr are expecting their second baby. Here’s a look inside their whirlwind romance.
Joshua Kushner & Karlie Kloss
Who they are: Kushner is the founder of VC firm Thrive Capital and cofounder of health insurance startup Oscar Health. Kloss is a prominent model who runs coding camps for young girls called “Kode with Klossy.”
Their backstory: Kloss and Kushner have reportedly been dating since 2012. The couple got married in October 2018.
Read more: Jared Kushner’s brother has married model Karlie Kloss. Here’s everything we know about the power couple.
Priscilla Chan & Mark Zuckerberg
Who they are: Zuckerberg is the CEO and cofounder of Facebook. Together, the couple launched the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a philanthropy focused on science and education.
Their backstory: The two are college sweethearts, and met in 2003 while they were students at Harvard University. The couple were married in a surprise ceremony in May 2012, the day after Facebook went public. The couple has two daughters, who were born in 2015 and 2017.
Read more:The 12-year relationship of college sweethearts Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan
Serena Williams and Alexis Ohanian
Who they are: Ohanian cofounded Reddit, then later cofounded the VC firm Initialized Capital. Williams is one of the best tennis players in the world, and ranks third on the all-time list of most winning players with 39 major tournament titles.
Their backstory: The couple met in May 2015 in Rome, and started dating that same year. They got engaged at the end of 2016 at the same place in Rome where they had first met. Williams gave birth to the couple’s daughter in 2017, and they got married later that year.
Read more: How Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian and tennis superstar Serena Williams met and fell in love
Bill Gates & Melinda Gates
Who they are: Melinda Gates cofounded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with her husband in 2000. Bill Gates is the cofounder and former CEO of Microsoft, and the second-richest person in the world.
Their backstory: Bill Gates first asked out Melinda Gates at a Microsoft company picnic after she was hired as a product manager in 1987. They dated for seven years before they got married. The couple’s philanthropic organization, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has invested billions of dollars in efforts to enhance healthcare globally and reduce poverty. The Gates’s have two daughters and a son together as well.
Read more: Inside the marriage of Bill and Melinda Gates, who met at work, live in a $124 million home, and will leave their children only a small fraction of their $98.1 billion fortune
Marissa Mayer & Zachary Bogue
Who they are: Mayer is the former CEO of Yahoo, and the cofounder of tech incubator Lumi Labs. Before that, she was Google’s 20th employee. Bogue is a cofounder and managing partner at the investment firm Data Collective VC.
Their backstory: The couple met through a mutual friend in 2007, and got married two years later. Mayer announced her first pregnancy in 2012 on the same day she was publicly named Yahoo’s CEO. She gave birth to identical twin girls in 2015.
Read more: The luxurious life of Marissa Mayer, the CEO who just sold Yahoo to Verizon for $4.8 billion
Sheryl Sandberg & Bobby Kotick
Who they are: Sandberg is the COO of Facebook, where she’s worked since 2008. She’s also well-known for her 2013 book “Lean In” about women in the workplace. Kotick is the CEO of Activision Blizzard, the video game company behind “Call of Duty,” “Overwatch,” “World of Warcraft,” and other popular games like “Hearthstone.”
Their backstory: Sandberg was first married to tech executive Dave Goldberg until he died unexpectedly in 2015 at 47 years old. Sandberg has a son and a daughter from the marriage.
Sandberg and Kotick were already “old friends” by the time they started dating, The Guardian says.
Read more: A day in the life of Sheryl Sandberg, who uses an old-school notebook, likes ‘bad TV,’ and goes to bed before 10
Marc Benioff & Lynne Benioff
Who they are: Marc Benioff is the founder and CEO of enterprise cloud company Salesforce, known for his philanthropic efforts to combat Bay Area homelessness. Lynne Benioff is a notable philanthropist on the board of the nonprofit ONE.
Their backstory: The Benioffs were married in 2006, although details of their Hawaiian wedding were kept secretive. In 2018, the couple bought Time Magazine together for $190 million.
Read more: The rise of Marc Benioff, the bombastic Salesforce CEO who’s buying up Time Magazine for $190 million
Dave Morin & Brit Morin
Who they are: David Morin helped to create Facebook Platform and Facebook Connect, and cofounded Path, a now-defunct photo-based platform. Brit Morin is the founder of Brit + Co., a popular lifestyle media company for millennial women.
Their backstory: The pair first met when they both were working at Apple years ago. They got engaged in 2011 after an elaborate proposal set in the Maldives, and got married the following year.
Read more: What’s Tough And Awesome About Being A Well-Known Couple In Silicon Valley
Kevin Hartz & Julia Hartz
Who they are: Kevin Hartz and Julia Hartz cofounded the ticketing startup Eventbrite in 2006. He is currently a chairman at the company, while she serves as CEO.
Their backstory: The couple met back in 2003 at a mutual friend’s wedding. In a 2012 interview with Business Insider, Julia Hartz said that “we knew we wanted to start a company together before we lived together.” The pair got married in 2006, and now have two children.
Read more: How To Marry Your Cofounder And Not Kill Your $200 Million Startup In The Process
Barry Diller & Diane von Furstenberg
Who they are: Diller founded the Internet company IAC in 1995, and now serves as a chairman for that company and for Expedia. Furstenberg is a notable designer with an eponymous fashion company who first rose to fame after marrying into a royal German family.
Their backstory: The couple got married in 2001 following an “on-and-off relationship” that spanned “several decades.” They first met years earlier in the 70s at a party Diller was hosting.
Paul Graham & Jessica Livingston
Who they are: Graham and Livingston helped found Y Combinator, a wildly successful startup accelerator program that’s produced companies like Dropbox, Airbnb, and Stripe.
Their backstory: The pair started Y Combinator in 2005 while they were already dating. They got married in 2008, and now have two sons.
Read more: Paul Graham Founded Y Combinator 7 Years Ago To Create A Job For His Wife
Diane Greene & Mendel Rosenblum
Who they are: Greene and Rosenblum both helped found the cloud computing software company VMware in 1998. They also together cofounded the cloud startup Bebop, which Google acquired in 2015. Greene was put in charge of Google’s cloud computing unit, and now sits on Alphabet’s board of directors.
Their backstory: The couple met while attending the University of California, Berkeley, when Rosenblum gave Greene a ride on his motorcycle. They have two children together.
Emily Weiss & Will Gaybrick
Instagram Embed:
//instagram.com/p/BsHLCjrDxJf/embed
Width: 540px
Who they are: Weiss is the cofounder and CEO of online makeup company Glossier. Gaybrick is the chief financial officer at payment platform Stripe. Both startups are worth more than $1 billion.
Their backstory: There’s not a lot about their relationship that’s been made public. The first picture of the couple on Weiss’ Instagram is from New Years Day of 2019.
[ad_2]