Mark Howard Gorton was born on 7 November 1966, in the United States of America, and is an entrepreneur, best known for founding the peer-to-peer file-sharing client LimeWire, created with the Java Platform. It provided BitTorrent support and he’s since expanded to other businesses as well. All of his efforts have helped put his net worth to where it is today.
How rich is Mark Gorton? As of mid-2017, sources estimate a net worth that is at $10 million, earned through a successful career in business. He helped found the Lime Group and serves as its chief executive. As he continues his career, it is expected that his wealth will also continue to increase.
Mark Gorton Net Worth $10 million
Mark attended Yale University and studied Electrical Engineering. After graduating, he then went to Stanford University to get his master’s degree, and continued on to Harvard University to acquire an MBA, then worked for Martin Marietta as an electrical engineer. He pursued interests in business, and would go to Credit Suisse First Boston to learn fixed income trading.
Gorton’s net worth increased significantly when he started LimeWire in 2010. It offered the capability to share a library of files through the BitTorrent method. The program started with a basic free version as well as an enhanced version which users had to pay for. Since it was free software, many other programs tried their hands in making their own versions of the program. It eventually started supporting firewall-to-firewall file transfers, and then created a Pirate Edition to fight against spyware as well as backdoor programs. This was in response to problems encountered with earlier versions of the program, which had an alarming amount of malware. LimeWire and Gorton then encountered problems when Arista Records sued Lime Group for copyright infringement and engagement in unfair competition. RIAA also sued Limewire with the help of 13 record labels, ending the program’s run.
Despite the setback, Mark’s net worth continued to rise with the development of Tower Research Capital which is a financial services firm under Lime Brokerage LLC and Lime Group. He used his experience with Credit Suisse First Boston to help develop the firm, and Mark traded stocks and built hedging tools to eventually create investment products to sell to clients – the buying and selling is done through an automated trade system. The company has grown to include 275 global staff as of 2016. It continues to expand, hiring people from different sectors of experience such as law, engineering, finance, and mathematics.
In 2009, Mark was named by Utne Reader as one of the “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World”.
For his personal life, it is known that Gorton is married, but keeps his private life exactly that. He supports a lot of green initiatives during his free time, and is a known supporter of Transportation Alternatives, a group which focuses on cycling, pedestrians, and public transit. He also founded the nonprofit organization OpenPlans which is responsible for creating the open source project GeoServer, which encourages green urban planning.
