Written by 10:15 pm Entrepreneurship

Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook’s Story

Who is Mark Zuckerberg? How Facebook was founded?

Do you know Mark Zuckerberg who iş the founder and current CEO of Facebook, the largest social network in the world? Mark Zuckerberg is an American computer programmer and entrepreneur. At the age of 20, when he was talking with a few friends in a university room about his invention that would lead the world’s social networking platforms, could he have predicted that it would come to this point? This man will write his name in technology books. Mark Zuckerberg, who showed his interest in computers when he was still a child, left Harvard University, one of the world’s prestigious universities, to continue “The Facebook” project. Mark Zuckerberg, whose personal wealth is 101.2 billion US dollars as of December 2020, is undoubtedly a name that everyone from seven to seventy has heard of at least once. So, who exactly is Mark Zuckerberg? In this article, we will explain to you who Mark Zuckerberg is. We wish you a good reading.

Childhood of Mark Zuckerberg

Zuckerberg was born on May 14, 1984, in White Plains, New York. His mother is Karen, a psychiatrist of Polish origin, and his father is external physician Edward Zuckerberg. Mark, whose parents are of Jewish origin, has three sisters. Mark has a good family structure, he once created a messaging program called “Zucknet” using a programming language called Atari Basic when he was only 12 years old. Father Edward Zuckerberg used this program to organize appointments for his patients. They also used this application for in-home communication. Zuckerberg also coded games for his friends’ computers during his middle school years. When Mark’s parents saw his interest and talent in computers, they hired a teacher to help him. Mark was a successful student in his classes.

Who is Mark Zuckerberg? How Facebook was founded?

He spent his high school years at Phillips Exeter Academy, a private college where he won awards in mathematics, astronomy, astronomical physics, and classical studies. There is even a team captaincy in fencing at this high school. You may have a role model for Zuckerberg who is always sitting at the computer, but this is not true. Zuckerberg was interested in literature as well as computers, he also gave great importance to learning languages. Mark at a young age received a job offer from Microsoft while he was still in high school, but he rejected Microsoft’s job offer. He received this offer thanks to the software he developed in the field of music called “Synapse”. I think it would be a bit absurd to be surprised that a person who is so interested in computers would choose a department related to computer science at university.

Who is Mark Zuckerberg? How Facebook was founded?

Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard Campus

After graduating from high school in 2002, Zuckerberg enrolled at Harvard University. Mark has gained fame as a software developer on campus, having designed a program called CourseMatch that helps students choose courses by subject. However, it was Facemash that caught the eyes of the entire campus. Facemash was a website that compared pictures of two students and allowed users to vote for which student was more attractive. However, since Zuckerberg did not have people’s photos, he hacked Harvard’s database. Following this action, he received disciplinary punishment. He left Harvard University, where he studied, after the disciplinary punishment he received.

Who is Mark Zuckerberg? How Facebook was founded?

It was during this period that Mark Zuckerberg met Priscilla Chan, with whom they have been married since 2012. About 100 people gathered at this couple’s home in California. The guests thought they were there to celebrate Ms. Chan’s graduation from medical school. However, everything was understood when Zuckerberg and Chan exchanged the sacred wedding vows. This couple currently has two daughters. Additionally, since Chan has a medical education, they invest some of their Facebook shares in hospitals and personal development programs. Mark Zuckerberg was named the youngest CEO in history to enter the Fortune 500 list at the age of 28.

Who is Mark Zuckerberg? How Facebook was founded?

Founding of Facebook

After the disciplinary punishment he received, Mark dropped out of Harvard to focus intensely on “The Facebook” project. This website, whose first name was “The Facebook”, was founded on February 4, 2004. The first version of this website was only available to students at Harvard University. As the project received more attention than Zuckerberg’s expectations, other universities began to be included over time. The fact that the project exceeded the 1 million user threshold at the end of 2004 gave signals for the future. In 2005, a venture capital firm, Accel Partners, invested $12.7 million in the Facebook project. Facebook has experienced a major disruption in just a few years. It became a platform that can be accessed with all e-mail addresses on September 11, 2006. Meanwhile, Facebook received acquisition offers from many companies such as Yahoo and Microsoft. Additionally, Facebook has gone through legal battles and has greatly increased its user base.

Is Facebook Idea Stolen?

Brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the founders of the project called Harvard Connection, came to the fore with the claim that the idea of Facebook came from them, but that Mark Zuckerberg stole their idea. The Winklevoss brothers took this issue to justice. A few months after the case, this incident escalated further after the law firm they worked with used a sentence such as “We earned 65 million dollars from Facebook” in its advertisement. The Winklevoss brothers’ statement is as follows: “The idea of the world’s first social network was ours, we were going to make money from this project with advertisements, but Zuckerberg stole our idea.”

Who is Mark Zuckerberg? How Facebook was founded?
Winklevoss Brothers, Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss

Facebook Spreading Around the World

Facebook has never stopped its development over the years. With a decision taken in 2012, some of the company’s shares were offered to the public. After Facebook’s IPO(Initial Public Offering), Mark Zuckerberg entered the world’s richest list at rank 29. As entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk predicted, the company acquired Instagram in the following years. Instagram is not the only company it has purchased, it has also acquired WhatsApp. The only company that Facebook could not buy and rejected the purchase offer is Snapchat. Having reached 1 million users in late 2004, Facebook must have proven that it is a monument of success when it reached 1 billion users in 2012. Facebook’s number of daily active users for September 2019 is 1.62 billion. The company has a market value of $598 billion as of January 30, 2020. It should also be noted that Facebook’s annual revenue in 2020 was 85.965 billion dollars. The company’s main source of income is digital advertising. (Source: statista.com) With a net worth of $102 billion, Zuckerberg is currently one of the richest people in the

world.

Mark Zuckerberg, who will undoubtedly have his name written in golden letters in the history of social networking, celebrated his 39th birthday on May 14, 2023. Bill Gates and his close friend Warren Buffett took the Philanthropy Pledge and agreed to donate at least half of their wealth. Mark Zuckerberg also joined this team and vowed to donate half of his wealth. There is another fact to know about Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg is not a very high-level programmer and he learned programming from the “C++ for Dummies” programming book. Additionally, we must say that Zuckerberg is impressed by the courage and leadership qualities of Apple founder Steve Jobs. Although there is no movie made about Mark Zuckerberg’s life, a movie called The Social Network was released in 2010, starring Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Timberlake, and Andrew Garfield, about his Facebook success. In this article, we tried to write about the life and achievements of Mark Zuckerberg, thank you for reading, dear reader.

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References

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