Several Facebook alumni have formed startups to develop new social networking applications. Among them are Asana, which aims to improve collaboration among teams, Quora, which connects people and information, and Path, a mobile social network. The Los Angeles Times identifies the brains behind these companies as:

• Dustin Moskovitz (a co-founder of Facebook) and Justin Rosenstein at Asana
• Former Facebook CTO Adam D'Angelo and Charlie Cheever at Quora
• Dave Morin at Path

Another Facebook veteran, Matt Cohler, is now a local investor. Kevin Colleran, the company's first ad sales executive, invests in companies from his home in Boston. Local tech scene observers are optimistic about these ventures. First, they've got money -- or will have a lot of it as soon as Facebook's IPO is complete. Second, they've got great networks of potential collaborators, which can be a key factor in a startup's success. "The basic unit of innovation in Silicon Valley is the team," futurist Paul Saffo told the Times. "Innovation is an irrational act, and the only way to get through that irrationality is to surround yourself with other people as crazy and obsessed with changing the world as you are."