Pete Cashmore: The Brad Pitt of The Internet

Pete Cashmore Photo by Josh Hallett

Pete Cashmore is the CEO and founder of Mashable, an award winning site and Top 10 Blog worldwide, with more than 20 million unique visitors per month. He founded Mashable at the young age 19 in rural Aberdeen, Scotland in 2005. Prior to starting Mashable, Pete was a web technology consultant and a freelance writing. Unlike other multimillionaire internet college drop outs, Cashmore never attended University. But what do we really know about Pete Cashmore aside from the fact that his estimated networth is $20 million. Many have called him the “Brad Pitt of the internet” for his great looks, charisma and charm.

Cashmore was bored by school work, he skipped college and began writing a blog about how people were using technology and social networking. He was fascinating with how people were mixing and matching some sites likes maps and data, specifically google maps and data from police departments. Shortly after he started Mashable, it was generating $3,000 in ad revenues a month. The new revenue stream allowed him to hire another writer. He was no longer pulling all nighters writing for his blog. Mashable increased its audience by writing about the rise of social media platforms like MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Tumblr. By 2009, four years after the start of Mashable, it became one of the most successful blogs. Pete has said in the past that Mashable has been cashflow positive since he launched and has not had to raise venture money.

Many credit the success of Mashable to its skillful use of search optimization and huge catalogue of articles about how to use social media tools. Mashables audience is incredibly influential by sharing and distributing its links and articles around the wed, fueling the sites growth. Mashable generates enough revenue from advertising, custom programs, event sponsorships and conferences to support 40 employees, most of them working from new offices in New York City.

But the internet is an every changing landscape and for greater success Cashmore expanded Mashable’s coverage by adding new new sections such as entertainment and world news. He also hired veteran writers to oversee original content. By delivering more original content and news analysis, Cashman hopes to gain more readers and generate greater advertising revenues.