Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is an American
computer programmer and Internet entrepreneur. He is best known as one
of five co-founders of the social networking site Facebook. Zuckerberg
is the chairman and chief executive of Facebook.
Born: May 14, 1984 (age 28), White Plains
Spouse: Priscilla Chan (m. 2012)
Net worth: US$ 12.1 billion (2012)
Education: Phillips Exeter Academy (2000–2002), Ardsley High School (1998–2000), Harvard University, Mercy College
SYNOPSIS:
Born on May 14, 1984 in Dobbs Ferry, New York,
Mark Zuckerberg co-founded the social-networking website Facebook out
of his college dorm room. He left Harvard after his sophomore year to
concentrate on the site, the user base of which has grown to more than
250 million people, making Zuckerberg a billionaire. The birth of
Facebook was recently portrayed in the film The Social Network.
Early Life
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg was born on May 14, 1984 in Dobbs
Ferry, New York, into a comfortable, well-educated family. His father,
Edward Zuckerberg, ran a dental practice attached to the family's home.
His mother, Karen, worked as a psychiatrist before the birth of the
couple's four children—Mark, Randi, Donna and Arielle.
Zuckerberg developed an interest in computers at an early age; when
he was about 12, he used Atari BASIC to create a messaging program he
named "Zucknet." His father used the program in his dental office, so
that the receptionist could inform him of a new patient without yelling
across the room. The family also used Zucknet to communicate within the
house. Together with his friends, he also created computer games just
for fun. "I had a bunch of friends who were artists," he said. "They'd
come over, draw stuff, and I'd build a game out of it."
To keep up with Mark's burgeoning interest in computers, his parents
hired private computer tutor David Newman to come to the house once a
week and work with Mark. Newman later told reporters that it was hard to
stay ahead of the prodigy, who began taking graduate courses at nearby
Mercy College around this same time.
Zuckerberg later studied at Phillips Exeter Academy, an exclusive
preparatory school in New Hampshire. There he showed talent in fencing,
becoming the captain of the school's team. He also excelled in
literature, earning a diploma in classics. Yet Zuckerberg remained
fascinated by computers, and continued to work on developing new
programs. While still in high school, he created an early version of the
music software Pandora, which he called Synapse. Several
companies—including AOL and Microsoft—expressed an interest in buying
the software, and hiring the teenager before graduation. He declined the
offers.
Time at Harvard
After graduating from Exeter in 2002, Zuckerberg enrolled at
Harvard University. By his sophomore year at the ivy league institution,
he had developed a reputation as the go-to software developer on
campus. It was at that time that he built a program called CourseMatch,
which helped students choose their classes based on the course
selections of other users. He also invented Facemash, which compared the
pictures of two students on campus and allowed users to vote on which
one was more attractive. The program became wildly popular, but was
later shut down by the school administration after it was deemed
inappropriate.
Based on the buzz of his previous projects, three of his fellow
students—Divya Narendra, and twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss—sought
him out to work on an idea for a social networking site they called
Harvard Connection. This site was designed to use information from
Harvard's student networks in order to create a dating site for the
Harvard elite. Zuckerberg agreed to help with the project, but soon
dropped out to work on his own social networking site with friends
Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverin.
Zuckerberg
and his friends created a site that allowed users to create their own
profiles, upload photos, and communicate with other users. The group
ran the site—first called The Facebook—out of a dorm room at Harvard
until June 2004. After his sophomore year, Zuckerberg dropped out of
college to devote himself to Facebook full time, moving the company to
Palo Alto, California. By the end of 2004, Facebook had 1 million users.
In 2005, Zuckerberg's enterprise received a huge boost from
the venture capital firm Accel Partners. Accel invested $12.7 million
into the network, which at the time was open only to ivy league
students. Zuckerberg's company then granted access to other colleges,
high school and international schools, pushing the site's membership to
more than 5.5 million users by December 2005. The site then began
attracting the interest of other companies, who wanted to advertize with
the popular social hub. Not wanting to sell out, Zuckerberg turned down
offers from companies such as Yahoo! and MTV Networks. Instead, he
focused on expanding the site, opening up his project to outside
developers and adding more features.
Zuckerberg seemed to be going nowhere but up, however in 2006, the
business mogul faced his first big hurdle. The creators of Harvard
Connection claimed that Zuckerberg stole their idea, and insisted the
software developer needed to pay for their business losses. Zuckerberg
maintained that the ideas were based on two very different types of
social networks but, after lawyers searched Zuckerberg's records,
incriminating Instant Messages revealed that Zuckerberg may have
intentionally stolen the intellectual property of Harvard Connection and
offered Facebook users' private information to his friends.
Zuckerberg later apologized for the incriminating messages, saying he
regretted them. "If you're going to go on to build a service that is
influential and that a lot of people rely on, then you need to be
mature, right?" he said in an interview with The New Yorker. "I think
I've grown and learned a lot."
Although an initial settlement of $65 million was reached between the
two parties, the legal dispute over the matter continued well into
2011, after Narendra and the Winklevosses claimed they were misled in
regards to the value of their stock.
Zuckerberg faced yet another personal challenge when the 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires,
by writer Ben Mezrich, hit stores. Mezrich was heavily criticized for
his re-telling of Zuckerberg's story, which used invented scenes,
re-imagined dialogue and fictional characters. Regardless of how
true-to-life the story was, Mezrich managed to sell the rights of the
tale to screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, and the critically acclaimed film The Social Network received eight Academy Award nominations.
Zuckerberg objected strongly to the film's narrative, and later told a reporter at The New Yorker that many of the details in the film were inaccurate. For example, Zuckerberg has been dating longtime girlfriend
Priscilla Chan, a Chinese-American medical student he met at Harvard,
since 2003. He also said he never had interest in joining any of the
final clubs. "It's interesting what stuff they focused on getting right;
like, every single shirt and fleece that I had in that movie is
actually a shirt or fleece that I own,
" Zuckerberg told a reporter at a start-up conference in 2010.
"So there's all this stuff that they got wrong and a bunch of random
details that they got right."
Yet Zuckerberg and Facebook continued to succeed, in spite of the criticism. Time magazine named him Person of the Year in 2010, and Vanity Fair placed him at the top of their New Establishment list. Forbes also ranked Zuckerberg at No. 35—beating out Apple CEO Steve Jobs—on its "400" list, estimating his net worth to be $6.9 billion.
Philanthropic Causes
Since amassing his sizeable fortune, Zuckerberg has used his
millions to fund a variety of philanthropic causes. The most notable
examples came in 2010. In September of that year, he donated $100
million to save the failing Newark Public Schools system in New Jersey.
Then, in December 2010, Zuckerberg signed the "Giving Pledge", promising
to donate at least 50 percent of his wealth to charity over the course
of his lifetime. Other Giving Pledge members include Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and George Lucas.
After his donation, Zuckerberg called on other young, wealthy
entrepreneurs to follow suit. "With a generation of younger folks who
have thrived on the success of their companies, there is a big
opportunity for many of us to give back earlier in our lifetime and see
the impact of our philanthropic efforts," he said.
Going Public
Zuckerberg made two major life changes in May 2012. Facebook
had its initial public offering, which raised $16 billion, making it the
biggest Internet IPO in history. How Zuckerberg's company will handle
this influx of cash remains to be seen. But Zuckerberg may be looking at
more acquisitions. He personally negotiated the company deal to buy
Instragram the previous month.
After the initial success of the IPO, the Facebook stock price
dropped somewhat in the early days of trading. But Zuckerberg is
expected to weather any ups and downs in his company's market
performance. He holds more than a quarter of its stock and retains 57%
control of the voting shares.
On May 19, a day after the IPO, Zuckerberg wed his longtime
girlfriend Priscilla Chan. About 100 people gathered at the couple's
Palo Alto, California home. The guests thought they were there to
celebrate Chan's graduation from medical school, but instead they
witnessed Zuckerberg and Chan exchange vows
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