Mark Zuckerberg was born in 1984 in New York and grew up interested in programming. He created several programs in middle school and high school, including a music program called Synapse. Zuckerberg attended Harvard University but dropped out in his sophomore year to focus on Facebook. He launched Facebook in 2004 while at Harvard as a social networking site for students, which expanded rapidly. Though faced with legal issues, Facebook became very successful and Zuckerberg is now one of the richest people in the world with a net worth of over $4 billion.
3. The Facts
Born on May 14, 1984 in White Plains, New York
to Edward and Karen Zuckerberg
Grew up in Dobbs Ferry, New York
Jewish family
His dad is a dentist and his mom is a doctor
4. Education & Social Life
Zuckerberg started his high school education at
Ardsley High School in Ardsley, New York, but he
found that this school wasn’t challenging him
enough so he transferred to Phillips Exeter
Academy, a boarding school in Exeter, New
Hampshire
After graduating high school, he attended Harvard
University but dropped out after his sophomore
year
5. Started programming in middle school and he was
very interested in creating communication
programs and games
Created a communication program to help the
workers in his dad’s office and a computer version
of the game Risk
He also created a music program called Synapse
which used artificial intelligence to learn about the
user’s listening habits
6. Because of Synapse, Microsoft and AOL tried to
recruit Zuckerberg and buy his program but he
decided to go to Harvard instead
While at Harvard he joined the jewish fraternity
Alpha Epsilon Pi and was known for reciting lines
from epic poems such as The Illiad
7. Where did the name
come from?
An actual facebook is a student directory that is
published by a school every year with pictures of
all students faculty and staff
These facebooks were a very common thing
among most colleges and prep schools
8. How it began and
bumps along the way
On October 28, 2003 Zuckerberg was blogging about a girl who had
dumped him when he got the idea to create Facemash
Facemash was a Harvard version of Hot or Not. It compared two people and
the users voted on which one was “hotter”
Zuckerberg hacked into Harvard’s computer network to obtain the pictures
of students from the different dorm’s online facebooks
The site was shut down a few days later by the Harvard administration and
Zuckerberg faced expulsion but the charges were dropped
Later that semester he expanded on his initial site by uploading images for
an art history final and allowing comments on the images so the students
could share their notes. The professor said it had the best grades of any final
he had ever given
9. Inspired by an article in The Harvard Crimson about the Facemash incident,
Zuckerberg started writing code for a new site
On February 4, 2004 he launched thefacebook.com
Within 24 hours the site had between 12 and 15 hundred members
Membership was originally restricted to Harvard students but gradually
expanded to most colleges in the US and Canada
In 2004 the company incorporated and moved to Palo Alto, California. Sean
Parker, who had been advising Zuckerberg became the company’s
president
The company bought the domain name facebook for $200,000 in 2005
dropping the the from the name
10. On September 26, 2006 Facebook opened to everyone over the age of 13
with a valid e-mail address
Soon after facebook was first created, three Harvard seniors accused
Zuckerberg of stealing their idea for the site. Their site was going to be called
HarvardConnection.com.
Zuckerberg had originally planned to help them with their site but he already
had facebook in the works when they wanted him to make
HarvardConnection
A few month after thefacebook.com was launched they launched their site
which they called ConnectU instead of HarvardConnection
In September 2004 ConnectU sued Zuckerberg for allegedly stealing their
idea. In February 2008 they agreed to settle the suit but in June of the same
year ConnectU appealed the settlement accusing facebook of trading its
stock without disclosing material information. This appeal is ongoing.
11. The Financial Side
The very first investor in Facebook was technically
Zuckerberg’s friend from Harvard, Eduardo
Saverin. He ivested $15,000 to pay for the first
servers
Although Saverin was the really the first, the
person who gets the most credit for being the first
investor is Peter Theil, former PayPal CEO, who
invested $500,000 in June 2004
12. Zuckerberg Today
Zuckerberg has a net worth of $4 billion
He is the youngest billionaire in the world at the
age of 25
212 richest person on the Forbes richest people
list
13. What type of business is
Facebook?
Facebook is a privately owned and operated
social network site owned by Facebook
Incorporated.
14. Facebook’s Mission
Zuckerberg created Facebook as a way for people
to share information and access information. If
they have the ability to do this they are able to
connect more with the people around them and
understand more of what is going on in their
world.
15. Interesting Facts
Microsoft wanted to invest in Facebook but was originally turned down. Now
they own 1.6% of the company’s shares
Facebook has over 500 full time employees and is worth about $15 billion
On November 30, 2007 the 11th richest man in the world, Li Ka-shing, invested
$60 million dollars in the company
There are over 250 million registered users on Facebook
Over 1 billion photos and 10 million videos are uploaded to Facebook each
month
The age group that uses Facebook the most is 35-45 years
