Mark Elliot Zuckerberg was born on May 14, 1984 in White Plains, New York, into a prosperous and educated family. His father, Edward Zuckerberg, had a dental office in his own home. Her mother, Karen, practiced psychiatry before the birth of her four children.
The boy became interested in computers from early childhood.
In an effort to develop this interest, the parents hire a tutor for their son, who, however, can barely keep up with the young miracle.
Years at Harvard
In 2002, Zuckerberg entered Harvard University. By his second year at the Ivy League school, the boy had gained a reputation as the university's top software developer. He comes up with a program called “Facemash,” which compares photos of two students and allows users to vote for the one they like better. The program is a huge success, but later it is closed by the administration of the educational institution, which considered it unethical.
Following this, three of Mark's classmates, having heard about the success of his previous projects, offer to help him create a social networking site called “Harvard Connection”. The boy gives his consent, but soon leaves the project, starting to develop his own website.
Joining forces with friends, Zuckerberg creates a social network, initially called “The Facebook,” allowing users to create profiles, upload photos and communicate with each other. After completing his second year, Mark dropped out of school, devoting himself entirely to the site, and transferred the created company to Palo Alto, California. By the end of 2004, the social network Facebook already had 1 million users.
The rise of “Facebook”
In 2005, venture capital firm Accel Partners invested $12.7 million in the network, which was then open only to Ivy League students. Zuckerberg's company opens up access to other colleges, universities and international schools, and by the end of 2005 the number of subscribers exceeds 5.5 million.
In 2006, the creators of “Harvard Connection” claim that Zuckerberg stole the idea from them and demand damages.
Initially, the parties reach an agreement on compensation in the amount of 65 million US dollars, but legal arguments in the case will last until 2011.
In 2009, fate threw Zuckerberg another challenge when the published book “The Reluctant Billionaire” by Ben Mezrich broke sales records. The author manages to sell the rights to screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, and the critically acclaimed film The Social Network wins eight Academy Awards.
Zuckerberg denies the veracity of the story shown, citing many inaccuracies in the film.
But despite all the criticism, Zuckerberg and Facebook continue to thrive. In 2010, The Times magazine named Mark “Person of the Year.” That same year, Forbes placed it at number 35 on its "400 List", valuing the network at US$6.9 billion.
Humanitarian activities
Having amassed an impressive fortune, Zuckerberg donates millions to various charitable causes. In December 2010, Mark signed the Giving Pledge, committing to give half of his wealth to good causes throughout his life.
Issue of shares
In May 2012, two important changes occur in Zuckerberg's life. Facebook makes an initial public offering, raising $16 billion, making the company the largest public Internet project in history.
On May 19, 2012 - the day after the stock offering - Zuckerberg married Priscilla Chan, whom he had dated for many years. Guests who came to celebrate Chan's graduation from medical school were surprised to find themselves at the wedding ceremony of Mark and Priscilla.
In May 2013, Facebook made the Fortune 500 list for the first time—and Zuckerberg, at age 28, became the youngest CEO to make the list.
Quotes
Now people are getting rich from the success of their companies at a much earlier age, and therefore many have a great opportunity to start earlier and have time to see the fruits of their good deeds.
Understanding people is not a waste of time.
Our mission is to make the world more open and united. We do this by giving people the ability to share whatever they want and connect with whoever they want, no matter where they are.
Facebook today is not just a collection of information, it is a community of people using our network to communicate and exchange information. And they will do this as long as they trust us.
The center of the world is not computer applications. These are people.
The true story of Facebook is that we have been working hard all along. I mean, the truth would probably just seem boring to everyone. In the sense that for six years all we did was sit at the computer and write programs.
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Mark Zuckerberg... This name is known to almost every person who has access to the Internet. Who is he? Programmer, businessman, philanthropist, family man and just a good guy who, at his relatively young age, achieved what many have been achieving for decades. This article will tell the biography of Mark Zuckerberg, the success story of his brainchild called Facebook, as well as interesting facts from his personal life.
early years
The future billionaire was born on May 14, 1984 in the American city of White Plains, into a family of doctors. In his family, Mark was far from the only child. He also has three sisters: Randi, Donna and Ariel.
At the age of 10, young Mark Zuckerberg realized that he wanted to devote his life to programming. It was at this age that his parents bought him his first computer, on which he subsequently spent days on end. At first he wrote rather primitive programs, but over time his skills began to improve.
First successes
In high school, Zuckerberg created his own strategy game called “Risk,” and even then he was noticed by representatives of Microsoft, who offered him to work for them. Due to the fact that Mark was underage and had not yet graduated from high school, the deal never materialized.
The next project of the future co-creator of Facebook was the Synapse program, which he wrote with his friend. This software worked on the basis of the Winamp audio player. It analyzed the musical tastes of listeners and showed a selection of similar compositions.
Studying at Harvard
This may surprise some, but programming was far from Mark’s only hobby. At the time of entering higher education, he was engaged in fencing, studied ancient languages, and also devoted a lot of time to mathematics. Oddly enough, he decided to enroll in the psychology department at Harvard. It was at this university that Zuckerberg began his path to success.
Creation of Facebook
While studying at Harvard, Mark Zuckerberg came up with the idea of creating a website where students could communicate online. It is clear that it is very problematic to create such a large-scale project alone, so he enlisted the support of his comrades Dustin Moskowitz, Andrew McCollum and Chris Hughes. Soon they were joined by someone who sponsored this project. After some time, a conflict arose with the latter, which was resolved only in the courtroom.
The main reason for Facebook's popularity is its convenience. Students could organize themselves into groups and areas that already existed in their educational institutions. They had the opportunity to add their photos and any personal information - from favorite hobbies to love preferences. Mark Zuckerberg's company notes two main differences between Facebook and other popular social networks. Firstly, here real people are looking for exactly the same people. Secondly, on this site you can choose which groups of users can access your data - only people from the university or absolutely all site visitors, only people from your city or, for example, all Frank Sinatra fans, etc.
The social network needed good promotion, which was undertaken by prominent entrepreneur Peter Thiel. As a result, this promotion led to the incredible popularity of Facebook. Already in 2006, this site entered the TOP of the most popular sites in the USA.
So who is the actual author?
Which was originally created for Harvard students, has gained great popularity outside of this educational institution. But not everything was as smooth as it might seem at first glance. Two brothers who studied with Mark in the same department accused him of stealing the idea. This is partly true, since they previously invited him as a programmer to create a similar site. They dragged Zuckerberg through the courts, but never won a single case. As a result, they were paid compensation in the amount of $45 million.
In addition to the success story of Facebook, many are interested in the family life of the creator of this site. We couldn’t help but take this into account, and therefore we present to your attention a few facts about Priscilla Chan, the wife of Mark Zuckerberg.
- Priscilla achieves her goals on her own. At the Quincy High School graduation in 2003, she was assigned to give the valedictorian speech. In America, only those schoolchildren who performed well during the educational process are awarded this honor. After graduating from school, she entered Harvard to study biology. In the period from 2007 to 2008, she was engaged in teaching activities. After these events, Mark’s future wife entered the medical college in the pediatrics department, which she successfully graduated shortly before her marriage.
- This may surprise some, but Mark Zuckerberg met his wife even before he created Facebook and became a famous billionaire. Their first meeting took place at a university party, when they... Standing in line for the toilet.
- Mark and Priscilla don't like pathos and glamour. In their free time, they prefer to walk in the park, play bocce (a game similar to bowling and petanque), and spend evenings playing board games. In addition, many journalists have repeatedly criticized the Zuckerberg family for their tasteless dressing and lack of style.
- Priscilla is the initiator of an organ donation program on Facebook, and is generally active in charitable activities with her husband.
- Before their wedding, Mark and Priscilla dated for almost 10 years. When they decided to tie the knot, they tried to make sure that this news did not get into the media. Moreover, they did not even tell their relatives about it. Priscilla invited them to a party, and the reason for the celebration was receiving a scientific degree. Only during the celebration did everyone find out that this couple had arranged a wedding.
Mark Zuckerberg's children
At the time of writing this publication, Mark and Priscilla are the parents of two daughters - Maxim (or as Max's parents call her) and August. The first was born in 2015, and the second two years later.
Is Zuckerberg the grandson of Rockefeller?!
In 2017, the famous banker David Rockefeller left our world. Almost immediately after this event, the world community was stirred up by an incredible rumor: Mark Zuckerberg is actually the grandson of David Rockefeller, and his real name is Jacob Michael Greenberg!
According to unofficial news sources, the story of the creation of Facebook is an ordinary fiction, invented as a distraction. In their opinion, this whole story about a working-class student who, together with his friends, created a multimillion-dollar social network, was created so that young people believed that they could achieve success from scratch. According to these sources, Mark Zuckerberg is just a pawn in the hands of more powerful people, and Facebook is a global surveillance system created by the CIA. The same media called Zuckerberg the great-grandson of Maurice Greenberg, a famous American entrepreneur and owner of the largest insurance companies, CEO of AIG and VC Starr.
At this time, these unofficial sources have not provided any evidence that the above information is true. As we already mentioned, Mark Zuckerberg was born into a family of ordinary doctors. His father was a dentist and his mother was a psychiatrist.
"Social network"
In 2010, a feature film about Mark Zuckerberg called “The Social Network” was released. The director of the film was the director and the screenwriter - The synopsis of the film is as follows:
At the center of the story is a 21-year-old student named Mark. He studies at the prestigious Harvard University and is in a relationship with his girlfriend Erica Albright. Mark is the type of person who feels good only when surrounded by people like themselves. The strangeness of his character and obsession with his studies ultimately led to his girlfriend leaving him. After these events, the protagonist’s neighbor suggested that he compare photographs of university girls online. Mark, wanting to take revenge on his former lover, approved this idea and successfully implemented it. After this success, students from a prestigious Harvard club pay attention to Mark and offer him an interesting project. But the main character already has his own idea and it is much more global.
Facebook creator's opinion on the film "The Social Network"
Despite the fact that Mark Zuckerberg initially stated that he would not watch David Fincher’s film, he still got acquainted with it. The Facebook creator praised the film for its accuracy in everyday details (like the T-shirts and flip-flops worn by the main character), but criticized it in other aspects. First, he noted that a character named Erica Albright never actually existed. Secondly, he didn't like the idea that the main character created a social network just because of his ex-girlfriend. According to Zuckerberg, this goes against reality, since he created Facebook only out of interest in what he loved.
Despite the statements of the real Mark, the author of the story, Aaron Sorkin, whose script is an adaptation of Ben Metzrich’s novel “Accidental Billionaires: The Making of Facebook, a Story of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal,” insisted that the events of the film were not made up. On top of that , he noted that Erica Albright, played by actress Rooney Mara, is a real-life woman whose real name has been changed.
One of the producers of “The Social Network” even stated that this film is nothing more than a metaphor through which director David Fincher showed the ways people communicate with each other. He also thanked Mark himself for allowing them to use events from his life as the basis for the film.
I would like to conclude our article with a few interesting facts about Zuckerberg and his brainchild:
We have provided you with a biography of Mark Zuckerberg, a photo of this millionaire, facts from his personal life, as well as the story of his incredible success. We hope that this article was interesting to you and you learned a lot of new things!
Mark Zuckerberg- founder and developer of the popular Facebook network, the youngest billionaire in history. In 2010, he was recognized as Person of the Year by American Time magazine. As the publication explains, the 26-year-old billionaire was elected person of the year for “uniting more than half a billion people and drawing a map of social relations between them, creating a new system for exchanging information, and changing our lives.”
In 2010, the number of Facebook users exceeded 500 million people, and the figure of Zuckerberg was “mythologized” by Hollywood - in the fall of 2010, the film “The Social Network” was released on the screens about the history of the creation and development of Facebook.
« In a world where social structures are paramount, a virtual, public dossier is an information bomb. And in general, if a person has brains, he simply does not have the moral right to work not for himself, giving most of his time and the results of his achievements to his employer.» Mark Zuckerberg
Success story, Biography of Mark Zuckerberg
Childhood, youth and student years of Mark Zuckerberg
Mark was born on May 14, 1984 in White Plains in southeastern New York. He was the second of four children and the only son in an intelligent family of a dentist and psychiatrist.
Mark learned that the world is divided into programmers and users when he was 10 years old and received his first PC (Quantex 486DX on an Intel 486 processor). Users are working on the computer. Programmers use computers to change the world. After the computer appeared, Mark felt terribly grown up and at first literally did not leave his new toy. After a couple of months, he got tired of simply changing the background color, and he began to read smart books, deciding to learn something more useful, namely programming.
Reading was good for me. Mark mastered programming skills very well and, while still in high school, wrote several small programs, for example, a computer version of the popular board game Risk. But not all of his crafts were so harmless. In principle, Zuckerberg himself says that he would not like to immediately create something global, but would be happy to do a bunch of cool little things, and the Synapse program is one of those. He wrote it for himself. The program was a smart mp3 player, which, having carefully studied the owner’s preferences and found out what music, at what time of day and how often, he listened to, was able to generate playlists independently, “guessing” which tracks the owner would want to hear right now. Both Microsoft and AOL became interested in the unusual program, and both Microsoft and AOL became interested in Zuckerberg himself. However, the young talent rejected the giants' offers to purchase Synapse, and then politely rejected their invitations to cooperate. Just like that, Mark gave up several tens, and maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars, and a job in one of the top IT corporations in the world.
It’s surprising that with such passion, Zuckerberg found time for other activities: he did well in mathematics and natural sciences. He devoted himself enthusiastically to such an extraordinary sport as fencing. I immersed myself in antiquity, studying ancient languages. Once I spent three months of school holidays at a summer school taking ancient Greek language courses. True, I changed my mind about enrolling in the corresponding department, but I retained the ability to read and write in both classical languages. And at the university I chose a rather unexpected, although understandable, discipline - psychology.
My university performance was so-so: my passion for programming took up too much of my time. Sometimes preparing for exams required extraordinary solutions, as, for example, in the episode with 500 paintings in an art history course. There were two days left before the exams, and it was impossible to read anything about each painting. Zuckerberg quickly created a website, on each page of which he placed a painting, and asked fellow students to comment on the works. “After two hours,” the innovator recalls, comparing himself to Tom Sawyer, painting a fence with the help of commercial savvy, “every picture was overgrown with comments, and I passed that exam with flying colors.”
Creation of Facebook
There was a section on the Harvard internal computer network where students posted their photographs and personal information. The photographs were so-so - the usual front and profile, tense expressions on their faces. And then it occurred to young Mark to have some fun: he made a program that selected two random faces and offered to compare who was sexier. There was no end to those wishing to conduct a comparative analysis. By the evening of the first day, four thousand people had viewed the site. When the number of visitors exceeded twenty thousand, the server crashed due to overload. Mark appeared before the computer hacking commission. Of course, they didn’t pat Zuckerberg on the head for this - he received a disciplinary sanction, but, apparently, even then he noticed that this kind of thing arouses intense interest among the people. Harvard, by the way, still refuses to comment on that incident.
However, the basis for the future communication masterpiece had already been created. On February 4, 2004, Mark launched a social network called “The Facebook”, which was intended as a communication site for Harvard students. “The Facebook” has become popular among students mainly because of the convenience of self-organization in groups, courses and parties that already exist offline in universities. By opening “The Facebook” you could find out where your acquaintances live this year, which girls are cute and which are not, who, in the end, is this year’s newcomer... all this is very reminiscent of what Facebook is today.
After the launch of the site, Zuckerberg told the press that Facebook was written in just a week, and this idea simply matured in his head and was quickly implemented, “on the spot.” Fortunately, fellow students also helped - together with Mark, Eduardo Severin, Dustin Moskowitz, Andrew McCollum and Christopher Hughes were involved in the launch of the project.
Very quickly, the social network created by Zuckerberg outgrew the boundaries of the campus (Let me remind you that at that time there were no “classmates” and “Twitters”; they were cloned later); already in the spring of 2004, it included all Ivy League colleges. Users were invited to post photographs and any information about themselves - from scientific and creative interests to gastronomic and love preferences. And also photographs, photographs, photographs...
Serious and promising projects at the stage of active development, as a rule, require substantial investments. But as life shows, these issues can be solved if there are determination.
Mark spent all the money his parents set aside to pay for his studies on the business, but naturally this was not enough for the megaproject. And so one summer Zuckerberg rushed to Silicon Valley, where interesting ideas, if lucky, can get support. And again luck smiled on the assertive guy. Like the hero of the Finnish writer Martti Larni, who left home for matches and ended up in America, student Zuckerberg went on reconnaissance and got stuck in Palo Alto - the heart of Silicon Valley.
One evening on the street, he chanced upon Sean Parker, an Internet cult figure and one of the creators of the file-sharing program Napster. It turned out that Parker was moving to Palo Alto, but did not yet have an apartment. " We(Mark and his friends) we just invited him to spend the night with us", says Mark. It was Parker who introduced Zuckerberg to Peter Thiel, co-founder of the PayPal payment system. An experienced businessman, after a fifteen-minute conversation, invested the red-haired youth for 500 thousand dollars. Zuckerberg wrote to the university for an indefinite leave of absence, just as another famous Harvard dropout, Bill Gates, once did.
Half a million is just a lot of money at first glance. Mark and his team perfected their brainchild in rented premises in Palo Alto, some sitting on wobbly chairs, some right on the floor. There was no ventilation in the rooms where the servers were located. In the California summer heat of 45 degrees, the plastic racks melted at the edges.
In November 2004, the number of users exceeded one million. Another six months later, with the help of Peter Thiel, the company managed to receive serious funds - $12.7 million from Accel Partners. In the fall of 2005, there were already more than 5 million active clients.
Soon the portal announced free registration for any user with a valid email address. The percentage of customers over 30 has grown significantly, and Facebook has established itself among the leaders of the Internet, consistently remaining the seventh most popular site in America.
In 2006, Zuckerberg began receiving the first purchase offers. At first the amounts were very cautious, but they began to increase quite quickly. They offered $750 million, but Mark refused and said that this was three times less than the amount about which serious discussions could be held. Later, at the already mentioned negotiations with Yahoo, there was talk of a billion, but Zuckerberg again said no. Rumors claim that there was also an offer from Google, and they gave more, but Facebook remained in the same hands, and the rumors remained rumors.
The site, meanwhile, grew not only with people, but also with new services, both successful and outright failures. It was clear to everyone in the company that they were sitting on a lot of money, but coming up with elegant ways to get it from users was not such an easy task. The site tested various methods of introducing contextual advertising that was as gentle as possible. In this regard, there were also scandals, in particular related to data privacy (which turned out to be a big question) and the inability to permanently delete your account. In general, everything is natural - the larger the community, the larger the unrest.
2007 was definitely a year of change for Facebook. To begin with, Microsoft acquired a 1.6% stake in the company for $240 million. It is easy to calculate that in Microsoft's understanding, the total value of Facebook is equal to 15 billion pieces of paper with portraits of dead presidents. Where are Yahoo and Google with their modest amounts?
In 2009, Facebook officially opened the platform codes to everyone, so everyone had the opportunity to create new applications for the site, be it toys, horoscopes, calendars, or something else entirely. By the way, now more than 140 new applications are added to the site every day.
Madness has gripped the world. Even the casual dating model has changed. The phrase “Can you give me your phone number?” was replaced by a request for a link to a Facebook profile. And this is really convenient: instead of taking a long time to check by trial and error whether a person is right for you or not, you can simply look at his personal page. The popularity of Facebook has ensured the convenience of self-organization by interest groups that already exist offline or newly created.
A vengeful thief or a victim of envious people?
The launch of the project was accompanied by a scandal. Six days after the site opened, senior students, brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra, accuse Zuckerberg of stealing their idea. They claim that they hired Zuckerberg in 2003 to complete the creation of the social network HarvardConnection.com. According to them, Zuckerberg did not transfer the results of his work to them, but he used the work he received from them to create Facebook.
That same year, the Winklevosses and Narendra launched their network, renamed ConnectU. And they continue to attack Zuckerberg, complaining about him to the Harvard administration and the Harvard Crimson newspaper. At first, Zuckerberg convinces journalists not to publish the investigation: he shows what he allegedly did for HarvardConnection.com and explains that these developments have nothing to do with Facebook. But very inopportunely, another Harvard student, John Thomson, begins to say in personal conversations that Zuckerberg stole one of his ideas for Facebook. The newspaper decides to publish the article, which greatly offends Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg takes revenge on the Harvard Crimson. According to the Silicon Alley Insider resource, in 2004 he hacked into the mailboxes of two journalists of the publication using the newly launched Facebook. It finds all users who indicate their affiliation with the newspaper and looks at the logs (i.e. history) of the incorrect passwords they entered into Facebook. Zuckerberg's calculation was justified: two newspaper employees absent-mindedly tried to log into Facebook with the password for their email. Silicon Alley Insider claims that Zuckerberg was lucky: he read with interest comments in their correspondence about the editorial team’s communication with him and HarvardConnection.com.
The Winklevoss brothers and Narendra sue, but the court rejects their claim. They prove persistent and file another lawsuit. The second court conducts an examination of the source codes to understand whether they were actually stolen. But the truth is still not clear. The results of the examination were not made public: in 2009, Zuckerberg agreed to pay $45 million ($20 million in cash and the rest in Facebook shares) to ConnectU as part of a pre-trial settlement. After this, the case was closed. By that point, ConnectU had fewer than 100,000 users, while Facebook boasted 150 million.
But the Winklevoss brothers did not rest on this; they filed a petition with the US Federal Court of Appeal, but they were denied a review of the case. According to their lawyer, Jerome Faulk, the appeals court denied the brothers a review of the case, based only on a settlement agreement between the parties, which states that the parties to the trial, once signed, have no right to reopen the trial. According to the lawyer, the decision was illegal, since Mark Zuckerberg provided false data about the value of the company during the proceedings in 2008.
On May 17, 2011, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss brought a lawsuit against the owner of the social network Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, to the US Supreme Court. This is the brothers' last attempt to reconsider the case.
Lifestyle of Mark Zuckerberg
Having received the status of a billionaire, Zuckerberg himself did not change his lifestyle. As usual as a student, he rents a house (apartment) with a minimum of amenities in Palo Alto, where there is not even a bed, and sleeps on a mattress on the floor. The way to work overcomes on foot or by bicycle. The favorite look is worn-out trousers, a T-shirt and sandals on bare feet. True, he admits that for trips to such “adult” events as the forum in Davos, he has a decent suit in stock. His girlfriend's name is Priscilla Chen and she is of Chinese descent. Our hero, still in his first year at Harvard, confessed in an online diary that he liked Asian girls.
The spirit of the young founding father is reflected at Facebook's headquarters. The three buildings look decent and modern, but have not lost the image of a student dormitory. Casually dressed employees, whose number has already exceeded 400 people, show up at work late after lunch, but also stay until the roosters. To ensure that everyday life does not interfere with creativity, meals, clothes washing and other services are provided right in the office, and free of charge.
It is impossible not to note Mark’s sensible view of his “empire”. He understands that technological breakthroughs are one thing, but business strategy is something else, and he is not as knowledgeable about these things. The news that Facebook has appointed veteran Google manager Sheryl Sandberg to run Facebook's day-to-day operations has been welcomed by the business community.
The media's quest to learn as much as possible about Mark Zuckerberg is rarely successful. This is because the author of such a successful project is an extremely secretive, inaccessible person who does not want to demonstrate himself. If there are very short interviews, then in them the young and talented figure is mostly lost, stammers, stammers, in general, feels very awkward in front of the camera (this was the case on the Oprah Winfrey show). However, most analysts are convinced that this state of affairs is a temporary phenomenon and very soon Mark will definitely eclipse even the most advanced speakers of our time.
Secrets of Mark Zuckerberg's success
Unlike other famous billionaires, Mark Zuckerberg is in no hurry to reveal his secrets, therefore, many experts are independently trying to analyze the personality of the Facebook founder in order to understand how a 26-year-old young man managed to do something that 99 percent of people today cannot do?
The first thing to note is that Mark has always understood the difference between technological breakthrough and creative strategy. And if he is not strong in the latter, then he is happy to entrust this area of work to a good manager. Although in the field of management, Mark cannot be considered so mediocre, because in the most miraculous way the best of the best, specialists who have been hunted by large companies for years, end up on his team. Many argue that Zuckerberg has a rare ability to negotiate correctly.
Mark Zuckerberg is extremely demanding. He loves to argue, rarely praises his employees and strives to do everything to ensure that they work with their souls, completely devoting themselves to the task. However, there are simply no indifferent people in Mark’s team.
Many psychologists say that Mark’s modesty and unpretentiousness in terms of comfort contribute in every possible way to the fact that he can fully concentrate on his main mission - the development of the Facebook network. In general, the simplicity and even some carelessness in Mark’s business negotiations are legendary. So one day he refused a meeting with a Microsoft representative, which was scheduled for 8.00. " I'm still sleeping at this time", said Mark. When Zuckerberg was invited to discuss cooperation with Yahoo, he said that a girl was coming to see him that day. No amount of talk about this being a billion-dollar deal had any effect on Mark. There is no need to rush - Zuckerberg learned this principle back in his school years after the first offer from Microsoft. Today Mark is true to himself, and the money still flows into his hands. The youngest billionaire today has become the idol of millions of people who want to reach the same unprecedented heights. But only a few can do this...
What can we say today about Mark as a businessman and prominent IT figure? Perhaps nothing specific. Even experts disagree - some call Facebook the new Google, and Zuckerberg a replacement for Page and Sergey Brin, others speak out very cautiously, especially after trials and accusations of theft of ideas. It is still not entirely clear what in this whole story was a competent calculation, and what was luck and a wave caught by chance. The most common characteristic of Mark, heard from the lips of most experts, critics and the powers that be, comes down to one phrase: “He is still so young.” And it’s hard to disagree with this: Mark’s age really makes it difficult to consider who he is - a young genius or just a very lucky guy who is favored by circumstances.
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All sorts of fables about Facebook and its “real” owners are floating around the Internet. Some are sure that everything is run solely by Mark Zuckerberg, others are convinced that this social network is the product of intelligence services monitoring the Internet-active population. In fact, Facebook belongs to a number of shareholders who saw it as a profitable business project.
Facebook, of course, owes its existence to Mark Zuckerberg. It was this man’s enthusiasm that led the initially small project to the success we see today. The year of birth of the social network is officially recognized as 2004, and at that time Facebook was available only to Harvard students. Throughout the year, the social network has been actively growing, “capturing” students from American and Canadian universities. By that time, programmer Dustin Moskowitz and Mark’s classmate Eduardo Saverin had already joined Zuckerberg as financial director.
The turning point for the project was Mark’s acquaintance with Sean Parker, at that time already a well-known Internet entrepreneur. Sean was one of the first to see the huge business potential in the new product and convinced its founders to register Facebook as an independent company. As president of the newly formed company, Parker began searching for investors.
The first to respond to the tempting offer was Peter Thiel, the founder of the PayPal payment system. Later, a response came from Reed Hoffman, another famous Internet businessman. Investments from investors and the active work of developers led to the fact that already in 2006, Facebook became an international social network.
In 2007, Microsoft bought a 1.5% stake in Facebook, which also gained the opportunity to place its advertising on the site. And already in 2009 it became known that Facebook was making a profit. At the same time, the company became a leader in profitability among Internet projects. To this day, she has not lost her position.
Current situation
Today, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is its main owner and CEO. He accounts for 28.2% of the company's shares. Programmer Dustin Moskowitz is also not out of business and holds 7.6% of the shares. The largest third-party investor to date is Accel Partners.
The company owns 11.4% of the shares. Russian representatives of Internet business are not giving up their positions either. Mail.ru Group holds a 5.5% stake in Facebook.
Thus, Mark Zuckerberg created and gave impetus to Facebook. But without the support and active work of his comrades, the project could very quickly wither and not gain the glory that it can boast of today.
Facebook: success story
There is not a person in the modern civilized world who has not heard about Facebook. The most successful business project of the 21st century, a breakthrough in the field of communications, a tool that can change the world, the most visited site on the Internet... All this applies to Facebook. What is the phenomenon of social networking? How did an average student turn a small website run from his dorm room into a $100 billion company in just a few years? The answer to this and other questions can be found by looking at the history of Facebook.
A few words about Zuckerberg
You can't start describing Facebook without talking about the company's founder.
The creator of the largest social network of our time, Mark Zuckerberg, was born on May 14, 1984 in the small town of White Plains, which is located near New York. Mark’s family was the most ordinary: his father worked as a dentist, his mother was a psychiatrist. Zuckerberg was the second child and had one older and two younger sisters.
Mark developed a love for programming at school. Already at the age of 11 he wrote websites, and in the ninth grade he created the computer game “Risk”. In addition, Zuckerberg, together with a school friend, came up with an MP3 player that could automatically create playlists based on user preferences.
But if you think that Zuckerberg was only good at programming, then you are very mistaken. Mark is a winner of school Olympiads in astronomy, mathematics, physics and languages. In addition, he was an excellent fencer and knew Hebrew, Latin, ancient Greek and French.
After graduating from a private school in New Hampshire, Mark was invited to work by two leading US IT companies - AOL and Microsoft. However, he did not agree, preferring to study at one of the most prestigious universities in the world - Harvard.
Zuckerberg entered the Faculty of Psychology. In his second year, he moved into the Kirkland House student dormitory. Here the talented student became even more interested in programming. In the early days, Mark created an online application called Course Match. This service made it possible to find out which Harvard students would take a particular course. This application very quickly became popular among students. Mark also earned extra money by making custom programs. Zuckerberg did not spend much time studying.
Facebook at its inception
Mark proposed to implement something similar at the university, but the management refused him. So Zuckerberg hacked into Harvard's servers and created a website called Facemash, where students could go and vote on photos that were submitted in pairs. In the survey, you had to choose your favorite photo. The site was rapidly gaining popularity, but it only existed for a few days, after which it was closed. Mark's actions caused outrage among the university leadership and several student organizations. The question of Zuckerberg's expulsion was raised, but Mark apologized, after which the charges were dropped.
This event occurred at the end of October 2003. In January 2004, Mark Zuckerberg seriously began developing a new project. On February 4th, thefacebook.com website went live. In just a month, more than half of Harvard students registered on the resource, with 70 percent of them accessing the site daily. Zuckerberg could not cope with the increasingly popular site on his own, so he brought his roommates to work on the project. Dustin Moskowitz worked on the software, and Chris Hughes promoted the site. This project was financed by Eduardo Saverin.
Just a few days after the opening of the site, the Winklevoss brothers, for whom Zuckerberg once worked, said that Mark stole the idea of creating a social network at Harvard from them. This became the subject of a lawsuit that dragged on for several years and resulted in the brothers receiving $65 million.
Over the next few months, all Ivy League universities were connected to the resource. Amazingly, when each educational institution connected to Facebook, most of the students of that university quickly joined.
In the summer of 2004, Mark meets Sean Parker, who agrees to join his team. The guys decide to rent a house in Palo Alto, the historical center of Silicon Valley.
The rapid growth of the social network
In Palo Alto, the guys started optimizing Facebook and connecting new servers. The social network caused the effect of a bomb exploding. More than 80 percent of Ivy League students registered, two-thirds of whom logged on daily and were extremely active. The load on the resource was colossal, so Mark chose the only correct strategy - to connect new universities and colleges to the network only when technical capabilities allow it.
The new school year was supposed to start in September, and with it a new surge in Facebook user activity. The guys planned to connect new universities and colleges, whose students were already looking forward to this. Zuckerberg and his team worked most actively at night. The best decisions, according to Mark, were made at 3-4 o'clock in the morning. While working, the guys communicated with each other using the AIM program. The mansion was in chaos. Empty energy drink cans and other trash lay everywhere. From time to time the company threw noisy parties. In general, the guys did not get bored in Palo Alto.
Meanwhile, Sean Parker was registering the company and searching for investors. By mid-2004, Facebook was already officially registered. Soon investors were found. The first of them was Peter Thiel, one of the founders of the PayPal payment system. He invested $500,000 in the network, receiving in return about 10% of the shares and a seat on the board of directors.
Autumn arrived and the network continued to expand. People have already started talking seriously about Facebook. At the end of 2004, the number of users exceeded one million, and the company's estimated value reached $90 million. But Mark Zuckerberg wasn't after money. He realized that if he maintained complete control of the company, he could change the world.
The next investor was Accel Partners, which invested $12.7 million in Facebook. The company now owns a 10 percent stake in the social network.
In the new year 2005, Mark continues to develop the network and connect universities and colleges to it. That same year, Zuckerberg launched a photo service inside Facebook. In addition, the site design has been updated.
After connecting universities, the company took on schools. There were fears that schoolchildren would not appreciate the resource, but they were not confirmed. But the attempt to create working networks ended in failure.
In the summer of 2005, Mark purchased the facebook.com domain for a huge sum of $200,000. That same summer, Sean Parker resigned as president of the company due to a drug scandal.
Further development of Facebook and its unprecedented prospects
At the beginning of 2006, 25 million people were already communicating online. The company's specialists were developing two innovations at once - a news feed and public registration. Meanwhile, Zuckerberg was in talks with Yahoo! about the sale of the company. But if the Internet giant wanted to purchase Facebook for $1 billion, then Mark was simply trying to find out the price of his brainchild.
At the beginning of September, the news feed was launched. Within a matter of hours, a major scandal broke out: while working to ensure that users could see the most interesting news from the lives of their friends, Zuckerberg and his team forgot about privacy settings. Numerous protest groups emerged, and articles condemning Mark's actions were published one after another in newspapers and blogs. But instead of immediately correcting the mistake and apologizing, Zuckerberg simply monitored the situation. Ultimately, Mark did what he had to do, but this incident still left a stain on the company’s reputation.
At the end of the month, anyone could register on the network. Now not only students and schoolchildren, but also middle-aged and older people could join Facebook.
The number of network participants grew rapidly, and already in October 2007 the barrier of 50 million people was overcome. There was a need for new investments in the company, so Mark began to negotiate with two Internet giants at once - Google and Microsoft. As a result of these negotiations, Microsoft and Facebook entered into an advertising agreement. In addition, the Internet giant acquired several percent of the shares, based on the value of Facebook at $15 billion.
In August 2008, the 100 millionth user was registered, in 2010 the number of network users reached 500 million, and in 2012 it exceeded a billion.
In 2012, Facebook shares went public. At the same time, the estimated value of the company was more than $100 billion.
But Mark Zuckerberg is not going to stop there and sets himself quite ambitious goals - to increase the network to 3-5 billion people. The network continues to actively develop, developers are working on new functions and improving old ones.
Now Zuckerberg is at the height of his fame, owning a controlling stake in the most popular Internet resource and several billion dollars. But this man is not even thirty years old! This is real success!
Section: Motivation
Mark Zuckerberg born on May 14, 1984 in one of the wealthy areas of New York.
He was brought up together with his three sisters in the family of a dentist and a psychiatrist. Even in elementary school, I began to show increased interest in programming. And with the advent of the first computer, he plunged headlong into his hobby. Mark was in sixth grade then. Mark created his first serious achievement in the field of programming - a computer version of the board game "Risk" - by the beginning of the ninth grade.
While still a student, together with a friend he wrote a program for MP3 - player Winamp. Using this program, the computer not only analyzed the user’s musical interests, but also independently created playlists that suited him. After the newly created program was made available for free access to the Internet, Microsoft Corporation offered Mark Zuckerberg about two million dollars for his brainchild. However, Mark refused the deal - as it turns out later, the future billionaire and founder of Facebook has a complex and unpredictable character.
Despite his incredible passion for computer programming, young Zuckerberg finds time to both study and practice his favorite sport - fencing. Mark Zuckerberg excelled in science and mathematics, and also, while immersing himself in antiquity, studied ancient languages. His interest in ancient languages was so strong that one day he completely devoted his summer holidays to attending ancient Greek language courses at a summer school. The result is the ability to read and write fluently in both classical languages. Despite this, when entering university, the young man chooses a discipline completely unrelated to languages - psychology.
Mark Zuckerberg studied at Harvard, where he was almost expelled for hacking the university database. He posted photos of students in pairs on his website, encouraging users to vote for the more attractive one. In just four hours, the number of site visitors increased to half a thousand. The management of the educational institution cut off the resource, obliging Zuckerberg to apologize to the allegedly injured students. However, this idea was so approved by the students that they demanded that the university administration immediately restore the resource. After reopening the resource, half of all Harvard students registered there within just two weeks. And by mid-spring, the list of users of one of the first social portals, Facebook, also included students from such famous universities as Yale and Stanford.
Thanks to the convenience of a hierarchical system that organizes users by groups, courses and many other parameters, as well as the ability to post photos and any other personal information, Facebook is becoming incredibly popular among students. The main advantages of Facebook include the fact that it is a social network for real people to find real people. Also here you can independently define the user group that will have access to your profile.
A chance meeting with Sean Parker, an Internet cult figure and one of the creators of Napster, a file-sharing program, turned the life of the Facebook founder in a different direction. Thanks to Parker, Mark Zuckerberg meets an experienced businessman and co-founder of the PayPal payment system, Peter Thiel, who, after a fifteen-minute conversation with Mark, decided to invest him for 500 thousand dollars. Mark Zuckerberg leaves his studies at the university, writing an application for an indefinite academic leave, and devotes himself entirely to work.
At first glance, $500,000 is a fairly large amount, but it was still not enough to fully satisfy all the financial needs of the new startup. Mark and his company had to rent space in Palo Alto. The working conditions were completely uncomfortable - there was not enough furniture for everyone, the rooms with servers were not ventilated, and the Californian heat above 45 degrees Celsius made it impossible to work.
In the fall of 2004, the social network Facebook had more than a million users. And six months later, thanks to the help of Peter Thiel, the company received a serious investment of $12.7 million from Accel Partners, thanks to which the number of active users reached the five million mark in the fall of 2005.
After some time, the rules of the popular social network were slightly changed. Anyone could become a Facebook user if they had a valid email address. According to Forbes magazine, the 23-year-old Facebook founder is 785th on the list of the world's billionaires and worth $1.5 billion. Mark Zuckerberg is rightfully considered the youngest billionaire in history.
The story of Mark Zuckerberg's life and success is incredibly similar to the plot of a movie, which has everything necessary for a good movie: an eccentric genius, lies, betrayal, intrigue, unexpected turns of events and an unpredictable outcome. But it’s probably better to start from the very beginning.
Beginning of life
Mark was born on May 14, 1984 in New York into an intelligent and financially secure Jewish family, becoming the second of four children and the only son. The future genius's passion for programming began to manifest itself almost from elementary school. When Mark got his first computer, and this happened in the sixth grade, his interest in lines of code acquired the character of fanaticism, without exaggerating the word.
In the ninth grade, under the light hand of a rising star of the information age, a digital version of the then popular board game “Risk” was released, and a couple of years later, Mark and a friend created an add-on for the Winamp audio player, which analyzed the user’s musical preferences and created track lists , which were suitable for the listener at a given period of time.
It should be noted that with the growth of programming skills, the future creator of Facebook also developed an eccentricity. So, for example, after publishing the same add-on for Winamp on the Internet, Microsoft asked to sell the project for two million US dollars, but Mark refused, arguing his answer with the phrase “inspiration is not for sale.”
University life
It is also interesting that for all his passion, Zuckerberg managed to excel in other disciplines, including mathematics, fencing, history and psychology. Such a capable young man easily entered the most prestigious university in the States - Harvard; moreover, the financial condition of his family clearly contributed to this.
It is not surprising that Mark’s university performance left much to be desired, since the aspiring genius devoted all his time to programming, and, oddly enough, his studies also required long hours.
However, Zuckerberg’s unusual mentality has helped him out more than once when preparing for exams. So, for example, two days before the exam, where it was necessary to talk about half a thousand paintings on the history of art, Mark created a website, on each page of which there was a separate painting, and asked his classmates to express their opinions about each one. In general, literally in two hours the material for submission was prepared, and Mark himself received the highest mark.
Programming: interest, passion, mania...
It cannot be said that Mark was an exemplary student: this man did not lead a completely correct lifestyle and was too keen on programming. Mark could suddenly leave a lecture or any other event and run across campus to the computer to bring his next idea to life.
One day, Mark broke up with his girlfriend, which he immediately, as was his habit, wrote about on a blog on MySpace. After a few bottles of beer, Zuckerberg decided to create a website that would allow him to rate girls based on their photographs. Using vulnerabilities in the protection of the university's servers, Mark downloaded photographs of all the students, and then displayed them on the website page in pairs and in random order, giving users the opportunity to vote. Based on the voting results, the most attractive girl at the university was determined.
Such cynicism immediately had an effect: the university network traffic increased several dozen times, reaching a record high. In addition, Mark’s actions won the attention of a variety of people, including the Winklevoss brothers.
The Facebook. Start
The Winklevoss brothers represented the most elite student club in all of America. And they couldn't ignore Zuckerberg's impressive capabilities. As a result, Mark was invited to participate in the development of the university social network “Harvard-connection”. However, the young genius was not very interested in such an offer and he began working on the creation of The Facebook. Financial assistance was provided to him by fellow student Eduardo Saverin, whose name was on the list of authors of the project for some time.
The first global social network developed every day and approached the level that anyone can see in their browser. At first, Facebook only worked at universities, then it began to take over one educational institution after another. City by city, country by country, continent by continent. Soon, Mark hired several programmers to help him from among the university students.
Eduardo Saverin insisted that Facebook should make money through advertising. Mark did not agree with him and in every possible way prevented negotiations with potential investors. But at one fine moment, Zuckerberg was lucky enough to meet Sean Parker, the notorious developer of a music service who turned the music industry upside down and incurred the wrath of all recording studios and copyright holders.
Sean Parker. A new round of Facebook history
Sean Parker made a strong impression on Mark. He managed to persuade Zuckerberg to move to California and begin to attract large investors, which, by the way, led to the fact that Eduardo Saverin began to gradually move away from the project, and after some time his name was crossed out from the list of authors.
The Facebook project lost the “The” prefix, because, according to Sean, “it’s cooler,” and began to bring in a lot of money. However, Mark was not interested in finances; the project itself was important to him.
What followed was a series of lawsuits and proceedings. Mark was sued by the unsuccessful co-authors of “Harvard-connection” and Eduardo Saverin himself, who, in his opinion, was unreasonably excluded from the project.
Zuckerberg and Facebook today
Today, Facebook is the most popular social network in the world. This project generates billions of dollars in profits through promotions and advertising. Mark himself is one of the richest people on the planet:
- At the beginning of 2010, the billionaire's fortune was estimated at only $6.9 billion. By the end of the year, this figure had increased by almost two and a half times;
- In the first half of 2013, Mark entered the top ten richest people, with almost 14 billion US dollars at his disposal;
- In October 2014, Zuckerberg purchased land on the coast of Kauai for one hundred million dollars, where it was planned to build an estate with an area of 280 hectares;
- At the end of 2014, Mark took fourteenth place according to Forbes in the ranking of billionaires with a fortune of about 33.6 billion US dollars.
10 Best Mark Zuckerberg Quotes
1. “In a world that is changing very quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not to take risks.”
— From an interview given in October 2011 at the Y Combinator Startup School in Palo Alto, California.
2. “The question is not what we want to know about people, the question is what people themselves want to tell about themselves.”
— From an interview with Charlie Rose in November 2011.
3. “I actually wrote code for Facebook in my dorm and ran it from my room. For $85 a month I rented a server and covered my expenses through advertising on the site. We are still making money from this."
— In the same interview with Charlie Rose, Zuckerberg talked about the humble beginnings of his career.
4. “A squirrel dying in your yard may be more important right now than people dying in Africa.”
— From an appeal to colleagues on Facebook regarding the relevance of certain events, according to The New York Times.
5. “Move fast, destroy everything. If you don't destroy everything, you're not fast enough."
— In an interview with Business Insider's Henry Blodgett, Zuck (Zuckerberg's nickname) talked about innovation and management. However, he recently announced that Facebook would change its much-talked-about motto.
6. “It sounds strange, of course, but I’d rather be among people who underestimate us. It motivates them to go out and do something big, something that will excite them, that will amaze them.”
— At the Disrupt SF conference organized by TechCrunch in September 2012, the entrepreneur shared his views on the criticism and doubts expressed towards Facebook.
7. “A person can be a genius or have all the necessary skills, but if he doesn’t believe in himself, he won’t give it his all.”
— From a series of talks at Stanford University in October 2005 on hiring the right employees.
8. “People don’t care what they say about you in the movies—or even what you say. They're interested in what you're doing."
— From an interview with Diane Sawyer, ABC, July 2010.
9. “When you're in Silicon Valley, you feel like this is where you should work. But it is not so. If I were starting my career now, I would work in Boston. Silicon Valley, in my opinion, is focused on the short term, and I don't like that."
— From an interview given in October 2011 at the Y Combinator Startup School in Palo Alto, California.
10. “Almost every day I ask myself: Am I doing the most important thing possible? If I understand that I am working on the most significant problem that I can help solve, I get satisfaction from the time spent.”
— From the biography “Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook Creator” by Marcia Amidon Lusted.
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