MARK

ZUCKERBERG
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is an internet
entrepreneur and philanthropist from
America. He co-founded Facebook and serves
as its current chairman and chief executive
officer. A New York native, Zuckerberg
studied psychology and computer science at
Harvard University. During this period, he
and his college roommates, Eduardo Saverin,
Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and
Chris Hughes, launched Facebook from their
dormitory. Initially meant to be for selecting
college campuses, the site witnessed
exponential growth in the following few years
and became the world’s biggest social media
platform. As of the third quarter of 2018,
Facebook had amassed over 2.27 billion
monthly active users. Zuckerberg has also
been involved with several other projects,
including Wirehog, a file-sharing program,
and Internet.org, a conglomerate of several
companies attempting to bring affordable
access to selected internet services in less
developed countries. Over the course of his
professional career, Zuckerberg has
encountered a number of legal controversies.
In April 2018, he appeared before the
United States Senate Committee on
Commerce, Science, and Transportation to
testify on Facebook’s use of personal data in
relation to the Facebook–Cambridge
Analytica data breach. Since 2010, he has
been listed among the 100 wealthiest and
most influential people by ‘Time’ magazine as
part of its Person of the Year issue. In
2016, Forbes named him the 10th most
powerful person in the world.
 EARLY LIFE
Zuckerberg was born on May 14, 1984, in
White Plains, New York. His parents are
Karen (née Kempner), a psychiatrist, and
Edward Zuckerberg, a dentist. He and his
three sisters, Randi, Donna, and Arielle,
were brought up in Dobbs Ferry, New York,
a small Westchester County village about 21
miles north of Midtown Manhattan.
Zuckerberg was raised in a Reform Jewish
household, and his ancestors hailed from
Germany, Austria and Poland. He had a
Star Wars -themed bar mitzvah when he
turned 13.
At Ardsley High School, Zuckerberg excelled
in classes. After two years, he transferred
to the private school Phillips Exeter
Academy, where he won prizes in
mathematics, astronomy, physics, and
classical studies. In his youth, he also
attended the Johns Hopkins Center for
Talented Youth summer camp. On his college
application, Zuckerberg stated that he could
read and write French, Hebrew, Latin, and
ancient Greek. He was captain of the
fencing team
 EDUCATIONAL
QUALIFICATION
Mark Zuckerberg was born into a
well-educated family and developed an
interest in computer programming at an
early age.

At the age of 12, Zuckerberg created a

messaging program named Zucknet that he
implemented as an inter-office
communication system for his father's
dental practice. Due to his early signs of
success, his parents got him a computer
programming tutor while he was still in high
school, and they enrolled him in a prep
school in New Hampshire. After graduating
from prep school, Zuckerberg enrolled at
Harvard University.
 SUCCESS
STORY
While many intelligent people attend
Harvard University, Mark Zuckerberg
became known quickly as the go-to computer
programmer on campus. By his sophomore
year, he had already built two programs:
CourseMatch and FaceMash.Both
programs became wildly popular, but the
university shut down the latter program
after it was deemed to be inappropriate.

Based on his acclaim on campus, Zuckerberg

partnered with friends to create a social
networking site that allowed Harvard
students to connect with each other. The
site officially went live in June 2004 under
the name "The Facebook," and Zuckerberg
ran it out of his dorm room.

After his sophomore year, Zuckerberg

dropped out of college to pursue what was
now called Facebook, full-time. The website
reached one million users by the end of
2004.

This explosion of user growth attracted the

attention of many venture capital (VC)
firms, and Zuckerberg eventually moved out
to Silicon Valley in 2005. Facebook received
its first round of venture capital
investments from Accel Partners, which
invested $12.7 million in the site that was
still only open to Ivy League students.

By the end of 2005, however, Facebook had

opened up to students attending other
schools, causing the website to reach 5.5
million users.Since 2005, Facebook received
numerous acquisition offers from the likes of
Yahoo and Microsoft, has been through
legal battles, and has greatly increased its
user base.

On Oct. 30, 2019, Facebook released Q3

earnings. The company reported that daily
active users averaged 1.62 billion for
September 2019, an increase of 9%
year-over-year. Monthly active users totaled
2.45 billion, an increase of 8%
year-over-year.As of Jan. 30, 2020, the
company has a market capital of $598
billion.Zuckerberg owns over 375 million
Facebook shares and holds 60% of voting
rights in the company.
DEVELOPMENT OF
FACEBOOK
Founded on February 4, 2004, by Mark
Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin
Moskovitz and Chris Hughes in a Harvard
dorm room, Facebook has rapidly become one
of the biggest social networking sites in the
world. Within the year, the social
networking site accrued over 1 million users
- which has since grown exponentially to hit
over 2 billion in 2018.

In a legal battle that ended with a

comfortable settlement of over $65 million,
Facebook's parentage was a source of debate
for years until Zuckerberg settled with the
Winklevoss twins in 2008.
According to Divya Narendra and Cameron
and Tyler Winklevoss, Zuckerberg reneged on
an agreement to help them build their own
social media site at Harvard - and, instead,
used the code and idea to inspire the
creation of Facebook. And while the dispute
was eventually settled in 2008, Facebook's
inception was clouded in questions.

But before there was Facebook, there was

Facemash.

In 2003, as a sophomore, Zuckerberg

created a site that compared the pictures of

different Harvard students' faces and

allowed users to rate the attractiveness of

those pictures - attracting 450 people to

vote 22,000 times. However, because

Zuckerberg violated the school's policy by

hacking into the school's system to acquire

photos for the site, it was shut down quickly

by the university - within two days. Still,

Zuckerberg avoided expulsion. However,

Facemash's success sparked the idea for

Facebook - a social networking site where

students at Harvard could use their ".edu"

email addresses and photos to connect with

other students at the school.

Along with Moskovitz, Saverin, and Hughes,

Zuckerberg created the address

thefacebook.com in February of 2004, and

it began to spread like wildfire at Harvard -

and then Stanford, Yale, and Columbia by

March of that year.

ACHIEVEMENTS

❏ In 2010, Mark Zuckerberg was named

the Person of the Year by ‘Time’

magazine.

❏ He was awarded CEO of the Year

accolade at the 6th annual Crunchies in

2013.

❏ In May 2017, several years after

dropping out of Harvard, Zuckerberg

received an honorary degree from the

 college at its 366th commencement

ceremony.

❏ In December 2017, he earned the

dubious distinction of being named the

recipient of the “Misinformer of the

Year” award from the progressive media

outlet group, Media Matters.

❏ The Richest Person in America’s 50

Largest Cities 2016.

❏ Global Game Changers 2016.

❏ #1 America’s Richest Entrepreneurs

Under 40 2016.

❏ #3 Richest in Tech 2017.

❏ #13 Powerful People 2018.

❏ The Richest Person in Every State

2019.

❏ #3 Innovative Leaders 2019.

❏ #7 Billionaires 2020.

❏ #3 Forbes 400 2020.

FACEBOOK
TIMELINE
★ February 2004 - Facebook (then
called "thefacebook") was founded by
Zuckerberg, Moskovitz, Saverin, and
Hughes.
★ March 2004 - Facebook spreads to
three other college campuses - Yale,
Columbia, and Stanford.
★ June 2004 - Facebook moves its
headquarters to Palo Alto, California.
★ September 2004 - The site
launches the now-infamous "wall" -
which allows users to post things

and receive messages on their own

page.

★ December 2004 - Facebook hits 1

million users.
★ May 2005 - Facebook expands to
over 800 college campuses.
★ September 2005 - The site expands
to high school networks. It also
drops the "the" to become just
"Facebook."
★ October 2005 - Facebook adds
photos and goes international.
★ December 2005 - Facebook has
over 6 million users.
★ April 2006 - Facebook goes mobile.
★ September 2006 - Anyone can now
join Facebook.
★ December 2006 - Membership
increased upto 12 million.
★ June 2007 - Video launches.
★ December 2007 - Membership
increases to 58 million.
★ July 2008 - Launch of Facebook for
iPhone.
★ February 2009 - The "like" button
is introduced.
★ July 2010 - Over 500 million users
are active on Facebook.
★ August 2010 - Engineering center
is opened in Seattle.
★ October 2010 - Groups are
launched.
★ April 2011 - Data center opens in
Prineville, Oregon.
★ July 2011 - Video calling is
launched.
★ April 2012 - Acquisition of
Instagram is announced.
★ May 2012 - Facebook releases
their IPO - which raised $16 billion
and gave the company a $102.4
billion market value.
★ October 2012 - Membership hits
the 1 billion mark.
★ February 2013 - Acquisition of
Atlas is announced.
★ June 2013 - Facebook's acquisition
of Instagram launches video.
★ February 2014 - Acquisition of
WhatsApp is announced.
★ March 2014 - Acquisition of
Oculus is announced.
★ November 2014 - Groups App is
announced.
★ April 2015 - Over 40 million small
business pages are on Facebook.
★ June 2015 - Facebook's AI
Research opens in Paris.
★ February 2016 - Facebook's
Reactions launches.
★ July 2016 - Over 1 billion users of
Messenger a month.
★ October 2016 - Marketplace
launches - allowing users to buy and
sell products.
★ April 2017 - F8 developer's
conference is held in San Jose by
Facebook.
★ March 2018 - Facebook sued by
shareholders following stock plummet.
★ April 2018 - Zuckerberg testifies
before Congress regarding concerns
over data and privacy breaches.
★ September 2018 - Facebook COO
Sheryl Sandberg testifies before
Congress alongside Twitter (TWTR)