Matthew Browning Prince (born ) is an American

billionaire A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least 1,000,000,000, one billion units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. It is a sub-category of the concept of the ultr ...

businessman A businessperson, also referred to as a businessman or businesswoman, is an individual who has founded, owns, or holds shares in (including as an angel investor) a private-sector company. A businessperson undertakes activities (commercial ...

and executive. He is the co-founder, executive chairman, and

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

of the technology company

Cloudflare Cloudflare, Inc., is an American company that provides content delivery network services, cybersecurity, DDoS mitigation, wide area network services, reverse proxies, Domain Name Service, ICANN-accredited domain registration, and other se ...

. With a net worth of billion Prince is the wealthiest person in

Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...

. Born in

Salt Lake City, Utah Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Salt ...

, and raised in Park City, Prince expressed an interest in

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

from an early age and graduated from

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

in 1996, the

University of Chicago Law School The University of Chicago Law School is the Law school in the United States, law school of the University of Chicago, a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It employs more than 180 full-time and part-time facul ...

in 2000, and

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate school, graduate business school of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university. Located in Allston, Massachusetts, HBS owns Harvard Business Publishing, which p ...

in 2009. Prince began teaching at

University of Illinois Chicago School of Law The University of Illinois Chicago School of Law (UIC Law) is the law school of the University of Illinois Chicago, a public research university in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1899, it became affiliated with the university in 2019. The school ...

when the

CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act of 2003 is a law passed in 2003 establishing the United States' first national standards for the sending of commercial e-mail. The law requires the Federal Tra ...

passed, inspiring him to found Unspam and

Project Honey Pot Project Honey Pot is a web-based honeypot network operated by Unspam Technologies, Inc. It uses software embedded in web sites. It collects information about the IP addresses used when harvesting e-mail addresses in spam, bulk mailing, and oth ...

, an

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

data collection software. In 2009, he created Cloudflare with Harvard Business School alumnus

Michelle Zatlyn Michelle Zatlyn (born July 1979) is a Canadian billionaire businesswoman. She is the co-founder, president, chief operating officer and a board member of American content delivery network provider and cybersecurity firm Cloudflare. Personal lif ...

and Project Honey Pot co-founder Lee Holloway.

Early life and education

Matthew Prince was born on November 13, 1974, at the

University of Utah The University of Utah (the U, U of U, or simply Utah) is a public university, public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. It was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret (Book of Mormon), Deseret by the General A ...

, and raised in Park City. His father, John Browning Prince, is a former journalist, restaurateur, and owned a stock brokerage firm, while his mother owned several gift stores; in high school, Prince worked for his mother. The Prince family, who have resided in Park City for multiple generations, assisted in the construction of various buildings in Park City, such as the Parleys Summit Ski Resort, the Stein Eriksen Lodge Deer Valley, and the Yarrow Hotel. Prince's great-great-great grandfather was Jonathan Browning, whose son,

John Browning John Moses Browning (January 23, 1855 – November 26, 1926) was an American firearm designer who developed many varieties of military and civilian firearms, cartridges, and gun mechanisms, many of which are still in use around the world. He ...

, designed

Browning Auto-5 The Browning Automatic 5, most often Auto-5 or simply A-5, is a Recoil operation, recoil-operated semi-automatic shotgun designed by John Browning and manufactured by Fabrique Nationale de Herstal. It was the first successful semi-automatic shotg ...

—the first

semi-automatic shotgun A semi-automatic shotgun is a repeating shotgun with a semi-automatic action, i.e. capable of automatically chambering a new shell after each firing, but requires individual trigger-pull to manually actuate each shot. Semi-automatic shotguns use ...

, the

M2 Browning The M2 machine gun or Browning .50-caliber machine gun (informally, "Ma Deuce") is a heavy machine gun that was designed near the end of World War I by John Browning. While similar to Browning's M1919 Browning machine gun, which was chambered ...

, and the

M1911 pistol The Colt M1911 (also known as 1911, Colt 1911, Colt .45, or Colt Government in the case of Colt-produced models) is a single-action, recoil-operated, semi-automatic pistol chambered primarily for the .45 ACP cartridge. History Early histo ...

. When he was seven, Prince received an

Apple II Plus The Apple II Plus (stylized as Apple ] or apple plus) is the second model of the Apple II series of personal computers produced by Apple Inc., Apple Computer. It was sold from June 1979 to December 1982. Approximately 380,000 II Pluses we ...

for Christmas. Prince's mother would sneak him into computer science classes at the University of Utah. He attended Rowland Hall-St. Mark's School in 1988. In Park City, he worked as an assistant ski instructor. In 1996, Prince graduated from

with a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in English literature and minoring in

. There, he was the editor-in-chief of '' The Trinity Tripod''. As a freshman, he co-created the online-only magazine ''The Trincoll Journal'' with Peter Adams and Paul Tesco. He then was graduated from the

in 2000 with a Juris Doctor and from

in 2009 with a Master of Business Administration as a George F. Baker Scholar.

Business career

Early career

While pursuing a degree from the University of Chicago, Prince worked at

Latham & Watkins Latham & Watkins LLP is an American multinational law firm. Founded in 1934 in Los Angeles, California, Latham is the second-largest law firm in the world by revenue. As of 2022, Latham is also one of the most profitable law firms in the world ...

, and upon graduating, he worked for the online insurance company GroupWorks. In 2003, Prince began teaching

cyberlaw Information technology law (IT law), also known as information, communication and technology law (ICT law) or cyberlaw, concerns the juridical regulation of information technology, its possibilities and the consequences of its use, including comp ...

at the

. He co-wrote a paper on the

following its passage in the ''UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law''. The creation of the

National Do Not Call Registry National Do Not Call Registry is a database maintained by the United States federal government, listing the telephone numbers of individuals and families who have requested that telemarketers not contact them. Certain callers are required by fed ...

through the CAN-SPAM Act inspired Prince to create Unspam, a spam-prevention software for email. Prince co-founded Unspam Technologies, which supported the development of

, an

data collection software created by Prince and Lee Holloway designed to gather information on

IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is assigned to a device connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. IP addresses serve two main functions: network interface i ...

es used by email-address harvesting services.

Cloudflare

In 2008, the

Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior, home, or public security ministries in other countries. Its missions invol ...

(DHS) contacted Unspam Technologies, asking, "Do you have any idea how valuable the data you have is?" The DHS' email served as the impetus for

, a technology company Prince co-founded with Holloway and fellow Harvard Business School graduate

the following year. Cloudflare's team won the Dubilier Prize from Harvard Business School, receiving a total of in cash. Prince's personal information was leaked in 2012 and used by the hacker group UGNazi to facilitate a

DNS hijacking DNS hijacking, DNS poisoning, or DNS redirection is the practice of subverting the resolution of Domain Name System (DNS) queries. This can be achieved by malware that overrides a computer's TCP/IP configuration to point at a rogue DNS server unde ...

attack against

4chan 4chan is an anonymous English-language imageboard website. Launched by Christopher "moot" Poole in October 2003, the site hosts boards dedicated to a wide variety of topics, from video games and television to literature, cooking, weapons, mu ...

. UGNazi were able to forward Prince's

AT&T AT&T Inc., an abbreviation for its predecessor's former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the w ...

phone number to a

Google Voice Google Voice is a telephone service that provides a U.S. phone number to Google Account customers in the U.S. and Google Workspace (G Suite by October 2020) customers in Canada, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switz ...

number using a

Social Security number In the United States, a Social Security number (SSN) is a nine-digit number issued to United States nationality law, U.S. citizens, Permanent residence (United States), permanent residents, and temporary (working) residents under section 205(c)(2 ...

the group purchased for several dollars. The transfer allowed the group to receive a

two-factor authentication Multi-factor authentication (MFA; two-factor authentication, or 2FA) is an electronic authentication method in which a user is granted access to a website or Application software, application only after successfully presenting two or more distin ...

code for Prince's personal

Gmail Gmail is the email service provided by Google. it had 1.5 billion active user (computing), users worldwide, making it the largest email service in the world. It also provides a webmail interface, accessible through a web browser, and is also ...

account, which he used as a backup for his corporate account, and were able to redirect 4chan to UGNazi's

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

account. According to group member Eric Taylor, Prince was warned of the attack a day before it occurred through an AT&T relay; Prince confirmed that he received several calls from an AT&T relay. Within a day, Cloudflare had identified three members of the group, who were also customers of Cloudflare. In 2014, Prince's house was searched by a

SWAT A SWAT (''Special Weapons and Tactics'') team is a generic term for a police tactical unit within the United States, though the term has also been used by other nations. SWAT units are generally trained, equipped, and deployed to res ...

team after a spoofed number called

9-1-1 911, sometimes written , is an emergency telephone number for Argentina, Canada, the Dominican Republic, Fiji, Jordan, Mexico, Pakistan, Maldives, Palau, Panama, Iraq, the Philippines, Sint Maarten, the United States, and Uruguay, as well as ...

claiming that someone had a gun in his house. Cloudflare received significant attention for providing service to the Chechen news site

Kavkaz Center The Kavkaz Center (KC; ) is a privately run website/ portal which aims to be "a Chechen internet agency which is independent, international and Islamic". The stated mission of the site is to report events related to Chechnya and also to "provide ...

. ''

The Kernel ''The Daily Dot'' is a digital media company covering the culture of the Internet and the World Wide Web. It was founded by Nicholas White in 2011, and is headquartered in Austin, Texas. The site, conceived as the Internet's "hometown newsp ...

'' journalist James Cook contacted Cloudflare about the site, sharing the email with editor-in-chief

Milo Yiannopoulos Milo Yiannopoulos (; ''né'' Hanrahan; born 18 October 1984) is a British far-right political commentator. His speeches and writings criticise Islam, feminism, and social justice. Yiannopoulos is a former editor of ''Breitbart News'', an Americ ...

, to which Prince responded by writing a blog post rebuking the email's content and writing, "A website is speech. It is not a bomb." He spoke out against

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is an intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the director of national intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and proces ...

gag orders A gag order (also known as a gagging order or suppression order) is an order, typically a legal order by a court or government, restricting information or comment from being made public or passed on to any unauthorized third party. The phrase may ...

in September 2013. Despite maintaining a free speech stance, Prince personally suspended service for the

neo-Nazi Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazism, Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and Supremacism#Racial, racial supremacy (ofte ...

website ''

The Daily Stormer ''The Daily Stormer'' is an American neo-Nazi commentary and message board website that advocates for a Second Holocaust, second genocide of Jews. It is part of the alt-right movement. Its editor, Andrew Anglin, founded the outlet on July 4, ...

''. An internal email by Prince and obtained by ''

Gizmodo ''Gizmodo'' () is a design, technology, science, and science fiction website. It was originally launched as part of the Gawker Media network run by Nick Denton. ''Gizmodo'' also includes the sub-blogs ''io9'' and ''Earther'', which focus on pop ...

'' said that he felt compelled to act after users of ''The Daily Stormer'' began boasting that Cloudflare was "one of them". In a blog post, he later stated that suspending service opens sites open to

distributed denial of service In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyberattack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host conne ...

(DDoS) attacks. Prince defended suspending

Kiwi Farms Kiwi Farms, formerly known as CWCki Forums ( ), is a web forum that facilitates the discussion and harassment of online figures and communities. Their targets are often subject to organized group trolling and stalking, as well as doxing a ...

' service in September 2022 after the site engaged in a harassment campaign against

Twitch Twitch may refer to: Biology * Muscle contraction ** Convulsion, rapid and repeated muscle contraction and relaxation ** Fasciculation, a small, local, involuntary muscle contraction ** Myoclonic twitch, a jerk usually caused by sudden muscle c ...

streamer Clara Sorrenti in August of that year.

''The Park Record''

In March 2023, Prince and his wife Tatiana acquired the newspaper '' The Park Record'' from

Ogden Newspapers Ogden Newspapers Inc. is a Wheeling, West Virginia based publisher of daily and weekly newspapers, magazines, telephone directories, and shoppers guides. It has operations in California, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, ...

and now provides digital articles for free. The Princes intend on converting the newspaper into a

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

public benefit corporation Public-benefit corporation may refer to several types of corporate entity: United Kingdom * public benefit corporation, the legal form of NHS foundation trust United States * Benefit corporation or public-benefit corporation, for profit but with ...

and adding Spanish-language coverage.

Personal life

Prince and his wife Tatiana (née Lingos-Webb) reside in

Park City, Utah Park City is a city in Utah, United States. Most of the city is within Summit County, Utah, Summit County, with some portions extending into Wasatch County, Utah, Wasatch County. It is considered to be part of the Wasatch Back. The city is sou ...

. They have a daughter. According to ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

'', Prince has a net worth of billion making him the second wealthiest person in Utah behind Gail Miller. He is a

World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental organization, international advocacy non-governmental organization and think tank, based in Cologny, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German ...

Technology Pioneer and a member of the

Council on Foreign Relations The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an American think tank focused on Foreign policy of the United States, U.S. foreign policy and international relations. Founded in 1921, it is an independent and nonpartisan 501(c)(3) nonprofit organi ...

. In October 2022, Prince's representatives had asked Park City planners to tear down a main house and guest house Prince owned on King Road and build a mansion, guest house, pool, and parking garage in their place. The blueprints would approach Treasure Hill, a million open space purchased by taxpayers in 2019. The matter came before the planning commission. On the same day language was added to a

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

bill that would allow Prince to tear down the houses without involvement from the committee, Prince hired lobbyist Lincoln Shurtz. The legislation failed in the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...

References

Citations

Work cited

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Prince, Matthew Living people 1974 births American technology chief executives American company founders American billionaires Trinity College (Connecticut) alumni University of Chicago Law School alumni Harvard Business School alumni University of Illinois Chicago faculty Cloudflare people