01 Starting advantages
2/24 starting-position score
Strongest documented signals: Frontier geography, Prodigy / innate ability.
Describes the starting position, not what the person later made of it.
Cohort percentile: 1
Dave Morin
Founders / operators · Founder/Entrepreneur · milestone at age 26 ·T3 Domain-recognized
Milestone (age 26)
As Facebook senior platform manager, co-created Facebook Platform (public launch May 2007) enabling third-party apps inside Facebook, at age 26.
Grew up in Helena, Montana, and skied for the northern division of the U.S. Junior Olympic team before studying economics at the University of Colorado Boulder (B.A. 2003). Joined Apple marketing in 2003, then moved to Facebook in 2006 as senior platform manager, helping build Platform and later Facebook Connect.
Starting point
Born 1980 in Helena, Montana; competitive junior skier who studied economics at CU Boulder before entering Apple marketing.
Current position (2025)
Entrepreneur and investor associated with Slow Ventures / Offline Ventures; Path co-founder; boards including Eventbrite historically; lives in Mill Valley, California.
How this path compounded
02 Built or converted leverage
12/25 multiplying-capacity score
Strongest observed levers:Domain proximity, Scarce skill depth, Elite ecosystem network.
Measures what was present, not whether it was inherited, earned, self-built, external, or mixed.
Cohort percentile: 45
03 Compounding trajectory
6 documented steps
The timeline below shows the sequence of work and transitions around the selected early milestone. It is evidence of a path, not proof that every step was necessary.
Milestone at age 26
04 Observed career standing
T3 · Domain-recognized
Notable and widely recognized within the domain. The tier summarizes documented career recognition through the data cutoff—not Dave Morin's worth or future potential.
Question four · where did the leverage come from?
Dave Morin's leverage provenance
Each non-zero lever gets a best-supported origin, evidence signals, and confidence. Unresolved is the honest default when the biography cannot distinguish self-built, advantage-enabled, earned, external, or mixed.
Domain proximity2/2
Advantage-enabledmedium confidence
One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.
Frontier geography (1/2)
Scarce skill depth2/3
Unresolvedlow confidence
No current annotation distinguishes self-built, enabled, or earned origins for this lever.
No decisive linked signal
Elite ecosystem network2/3
Advantage-enabledmedium confidence
One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.
Frontier geography (1/2)
Structural wave / timing2/3
Externalmedium confidence
A structural wave is external to the person, even when their position improved access to it.
Frontier geography (1/2)
Concentration intensity2/3
Unresolvedlow confidence
No current annotation distinguishes self-built, enabled, or earned origins for this lever.
No decisive linked signal
Complementary team1/2
Unresolvedlow confidence
No current annotation distinguishes self-built, enabled, or earned origins for this lever.
No decisive linked signal
Prior reps1/3
Unresolvedlow confidence
No current annotation distinguishes self-built, enabled, or earned origins for this lever.
No decisive linked signal
This is a bounded inference from the current annotations—not a claim about private effort, merit, or the percentage of Dave Morin's outcome attributable to any origin.
Structural luck, Encounter luck, Event luck, Outcome variance can change every arrow in the path. This successful-only dataset cannot observe the near-identical paths that did not break through, so luck stays visible and unscored.
Within Founders / operators, Dave Morin's starting-advantage total is at the 1th percentile. Separately, their built or converted leverage total is at the 45th percentile. Other T3 profiles average 7.0 / 24 starting advantage and 11.7 / 25 leverage. Similar scores appear in other tiers, so these figures describe positioning—not a cause.
Trajectory
- 2003 · age 22Graduated CU Boulder in economics and joined Apple in marketing.
- 2006 · age 25Joined Facebook as senior platform managerLeaving Apple.
- 2007 · age 26Co-created Facebook PlatformOpening third-party applications inside Facebook.
- 2010 · age 29Left Facebook and co-founded the private social network Path.
- 2013 · age 32Helped launch immigration-advocacy group FWD.usOther tech leaders.
- 2020 · age 39Started Offline Ventures, a VC firm using a subscription funding model.
Primary leverage engine
Elite product ecosystem + platform wave
Network / capital
Secondary engine
Product / domain insight
Built/converted leverage
12 / 25
evidence: Medium
Built or converted leverage
Multiplying capacity documented later in the path. Measures what was present, not whether it was inherited, earned, self-built, external, or mixed.
Starting-advantage scores (0–2 each)
Access or conditions documented near the beginning of the path. Zero means "no clear evidence in reviewed sources," not "advantage was absent."
Family context
Raised in Helena, Montana; competitive junior skiing background. Broader family financial or industry status not detailed in reviewed sources.
Parent / family domain
Not documented in reviewed sources.
Archetype & tags
Frontier geography immersionearly Facebook embeddingsocial platform wavejunior athletic discipline
Evidence summary
Morin joined Facebook in 2006 after Apple marketing and co-created Facebook Platform, launched May 2007 when he was 26—an independently reported product milestone (Wikipedia, contemporary tech press). Path (2010) and Slow Ventures came later. Family wealth and parental tech domain advantages are not documented; the main early advantage was immersion in the early Facebook ecosystem during the social-platform wave.
advantage confidence: Medium · source count: 4 · audit: not_independently_audited · status: subagent_researched_beta
Sources
Related — same primary engine
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Leverage 16/25T1