Mark Zuckerberg Fortune

Short introduction

Mark Zuckerberg is an American entrepreneur and former Harvard computer science student who, together with some friends, launched the Facebook social network in February 2004. In 2008 Zuckerberg became the youngest billionaire in the world at the age of 24.

Early life

Mark Zuckerberg was born on May 14, 1984 in White Plains, New York into a well-educated family. He grew up in the nearby village of Dobbs Ferry. Zuckerberg’s father, Edward Zuckerberg, ran a dental practice. His mother Karen worked as a psychiatrist before the couple’s four children, Mark, Randi, Donna and Arielle were born. Zuckerberg developed an interest in computers at a young age. When he was about 12 years old, he used Atari BASIC to create a messaging program called “Zucknet”. His father used the program in his dental office so the receptionist could tell him about a new patient without shouting around the room. The family also used Zucknet to communicate within the house. Together with his friends, he also created computer games for fun. To keep up with Zuckerberg’s growing interest in computers, his parents hired David Newman, a private tutor in computers, to work with their son. At this time Zuckerberg was also taking graduate courses at nearby Mercy College.

While still at school, he developed an early version of the music software Pandora, which he called Synapse. Several companies, including AOL and Microsoft, showed interest in buying the software and hiring the teenager before graduation. He declined the offers. In 2002 Zuckerberg enrolled at Harvard University. In his second year of studies, Zuckerberg was already known as a leading software developer on campus. At that time, he created CourseMatch, a program that allowed students to choose their classes based on the course selection of other users. He also invented Facemash, where the photos of two students on campus were compared and users could vote which photo was more attractive. The program was very popular, but was later discontinued by the school administration after it was found to be inappropriate. With three of his fellow students, he developed an idea for a social network called Harvard Connection. The website used information from Harvard’s student networks to create a dating site for the Harvard elite. However, he soon left the project to work on his own social network website, The Facebook. After completing his second year of studies, Zuckerberg dropped out of college to devote himself all day to his new company Facebook.

Career

Zuckerberg and his friends Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverin created The Facebook, a website where users could create their own profiles, upload photos and communicate with other users. The group carried out the project until June 2004 from a student living room at Harvard University. That year Zuckerberg dropped out of college and moved the company to Palo Alto, California. By the end of 2004, Facebook had 1 million users. In 2005, Zuckerberg’s company received support from the venture capital firm Accel Partners. Accel invested $ 12.7 million in the network, which was only available to Ivy League students at the time. The Zuckerberg company granted access to other universities, high schools and international schools and increased the website’s membership to more than 5.5 million users by December 2005. The website aroused the interest of other companies who wanted to advertise on the popular social network. Zuckerberg refused to sell his project and declined offers from companies like Yahoo! and MTV Networks. Instead, he focused on expanding the website, opening his project to external developers, and adding more features. 2.4 billion active members used Facebook in 2019. Zuckerberg now holds a 28 percent stake in his company and is one of the richest people in the world. The founding of Facebook was portrayed in 2010 in the film The Social Network.

Career highlights

Time Magazine named him Person of the Year in 2010. Facebook went public in May 2012, bringing the company $ 16 billion, making it the largest Internet IPO in history. In 2013, Facebook made the Fortune 500 list for the first time. At 28, Zuckerberg was the youngest CEO on the list. In 2019, Zuckerberg ranked 8th on the Forbes list of billionaires.

Famous quotes

“I am here to build something in the long term. Everything else is a distraction. ”
“People don’t care what you say, they’re interested in what you create.”
“When we find out what the next big trend is, we know what to focus on.”

Success tips

“Find the one thing you have a great passion for.”
“You are better off trying something, it doesn’t work and you learn from it as if you don’t do anything.”