Companies Founded by NYU Alumni

New York University sits in the middle of one of the densest startup cities on earth, and its graduates have built companies that touch how we shop, listen, navigate, get married, and pay for coffee. NYU supports founders across all 20 of its schools through the NYU Entrepreneurial Institute and its Leslie eLab, a 6,800-square-foot space on the Washington Square campus where students, faculty, and researchers turn ideas into companies.

This is a refreshed, fact-checked version of a list we first published in 2016. Every company below has a verified founder who studied at NYU. Where we couldn’t confirm a real NYU connection from the older version, we removed the entry, so you can trust the nine that remain.

The short version

• The Home Depot — financed and co-founded by Ken Langone (NYU Stern MBA, 1960)
• Def Jam Recordings — started by Rick Rubin in his NYU dorm room (1984)
• Audible — founded by Don Katz (NYU, 1974)
• The Knot — built by Carley Roney and David Liu, who met at NYU film school
• Etsy — co-founded by Rob Kalin (NYU Gallatin, 2003)
• Twitter / X — co-founded by Jack Dorsey, who studied at NYU
• Block (Square) — also Jack Dorsey, with Jim McKelvey
• Foursquare — founded by Dennis Crowley out of his NYU graduate thesis
• Glossier — created by Emily Weiss (NYU, 2007)

The Home Depot

At a glance: Co-founder and financier Ken Langone (NYU Stern, MBA 1960) · founded 1978, first stores opened 1979 · home-improvement retail.

Ken Langone earned his MBA at NYU’s Stern School of Business by taking night classes while working a full-time job on Wall Street. In 1978 he helped Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank raise the money to launch The Home Depot, and the first stores opened in Atlanta the following year. The company went public in 1981 and now ranks among the largest home-improvement retailers in the world, with well over $150 billion in annual revenue.

Langone never forgot where he started. His gifts to NYU were large enough that the university’s hospital system was renamed NYU Langone Health in 2008, and the part-time MBA program at Stern carries his name.

Def Jam Recordings

At a glance: Co-founder Rick Rubin, an NYU student · founded 1984 in a campus dorm room · music / hip-hop.

Few companies have a more specific birthplace than Def Jam. Rick Rubin started the label in 1984 from room 712 of Weinstein Hall, an NYU dorm in Greenwich Village, using a loan from his parents. After a club single he produced caught the ear of promoter Russell Simmons, the two became partners, and Def Jam went on to launch LL Cool J, the Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, and a generation of hip-hop.

The label that began in a student bedroom is now part of Universal Music Group and remains one of the most influential names in music. Not bad for a side project run between classes.

Audible

At a glance: Founder Don Katz (NYU, English Honors, 1974) · founded 1995 · audiobooks and spoken-word audio.

Don Katz studied English at NYU, where he worked with the novelist Ralph Ellison, then spent two decades as an award-winning journalist before starting Audible in 1995. The company shipped one of the first portable digital audio players in 1997, four years ahead of the iPod, and built the modern audiobook habit from there.

Audible traded publicly on the Nasdaq until Amazon acquired it in 2008 for about $300 million. It still runs as an Amazon subsidiary, now headquartered in Newark. NYU gave Katz its Distinguished Alumni Award in 2024.

The Knot

At a glance: Co-founders Carley Roney and David Liu, who met at NYU’s Tisch film school · founded 1996 · weddings and life-stage media.

Carley Roney and David Liu met as film students at NYU and married in 1993. Their own stressful wedding-planning experience became the idea for The Knot, which they launched in 1996 with two more NYU friends, Rob Fassino and Michael Wolfson. The site went public in 1999 and grew into the go-to wedding platform for most American couples.

Today the business operates as The Knot Worldwide, with a portfolio that includes The Knot, WeddingWire, and The Bump, and around 1,700 employees.

Etsy

At a glance: Co-founder Rob Kalin (NYU Gallatin, 2003), with Chris Maguire and Haim Schoppik · founded 2005 · handmade and vintage marketplace.

Rob Kalin graduated from NYU’s Gallatin School in 2003 and, unable to find a good place to sell his handmade furniture online, built one. He started Etsy in 2005 from a Brooklyn apartment with help from fellow NYU students Chris Maguire and Haim Schoppik. The marketplace gave independent makers a global storefront and a community to match.

Etsy went public on the Nasdaq in 2015 and remains one of the best-known examples of a creator-first marketplace.

Twitter / X

At a glance: Co-founder Jack Dorsey, who studied at NYU · founded 2006 · social media.

Jack Dorsey transferred to NYU in 1997 and left in 1999, a year short of graduating, to chase the ideas that became Twitter. He had been sketching a real-time status-messaging service since his teens, and in 2006 he built it with Evan Williams, Biz Stone, and Noah Glass. The first message, “just setting up my twttr,” went out in March of that year.

The platform reshaped public conversation and now operates as X following Elon Musk’s 2022 acquisition.

Block (Square)

At a glance: Co-founder Jack Dorsey, with Jim McKelvey · founded 2009 · payments and financial technology.

The same NYU dropout behind Twitter co-founded Square in 2009 with Jim McKelvey, starting from a simple goal: let anyone accept a card payment from a phone. Square grew into a full toolkit for small businesses and consumers, including Cash App, and rebranded as Block in 2021.

Between Twitter and Block, Dorsey is one of the few founders to lead two companies that each changed an entire category.

Foursquare

At a glance: Co-founder Dennis Crowley (NYU Tisch, ITP master’s, 2004), with Naveen Selvadurai · founded 2009 · location technology.

Dennis Crowley earned his master’s at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), where his graduate thesis project, Dodgeball, became one of the first mobile social services in the US. Google bought Dodgeball in 2005. Crowley then co-founded Foursquare in 2009 with Naveen Selvadurai, and the check-in app grew into a location-data platform used by hundreds of millions of people.

Crowley still teaches at NYU as an adjunct professor at ITP, where the company essentially began.

Glossier

At a glance: Founder Emily Weiss (NYU, studio art, 2007) · founded 2014 · beauty and skincare.

Emily Weiss studied studio art at NYU and graduated in 2007. While working at Vogue, she launched the beauty blog Into the Gloss in 2010, waking before dawn to write before her shift. As the audience grew into the millions, she saw a product opportunity and founded Glossier in 2014.

Glossier turned a content community into a direct-to-consumer beauty brand with a near-cult following, and its products are now sold online and through retailers including Sephora.

How NYU keeps producing founders

The names above span decades, but NYU’s support for founders is stronger now than ever. The NYU Entrepreneurial Institute runs university-wide programs out of the Leslie eLab and traces its roots to the Innovation Venture Fund, started in 2010. NYU Stern adds the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship, and NYU Tandon runs its Future Labs accelerators.

The most striking example is Endless Frontier Labs (EFL) at NYU Stern. According to the school, EFL has helped 243 graduate companies raise $3.20 billion over eight years, with two unicorns among them, and it does this while taking no equity and charging no fees. Research published in 2026 placed EFL in the top 5% of US accelerators by value added per startup.

Why so many of these founders built in New York

There’s a reason this list reads like a New York story. The city keeps its talent: research from Tech:NYC found that New York retains about 66% of its graduates, a higher share than the Bay Area or Boston. Founders stay, and they need somewhere to work.

That’s where we come in. The Farm SoHo gives founders flexible space a short walk from NYU, with coworking memberships, private offices, and day passes in SoHo and NoMad. If you’re forming a company rather than renting a desk, we also offer a New York virtual office and registered agent service so you can launch with a real business address. The next name on a list like this has to work somewhere. It might as well be here.