mark zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg

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Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg at the 37th G8 Summit in Deauville 018 v1.jpg
Zuckerberg at the 37th G8 summit in 2011.
Born Mark Elliot Zuckerberg
May 14, 1984 (age 29)[1]
White Plains, New York, US
Residence Palo Alto, California, US[2]
Nationality American
Ethnicity White
Alma mater Harvard College (dropped out)
Occupation Chairman & CEO of Facebook, Inc.
Years active 2004–present
Known for Co-founding Facebook in 2004;
world's 2nd youngest self-made billionaire (2012)[3]
Salary US$ 1[4]
Net worth Increase US$ 16.8 billion (2013)[5][6]
Religion Jewish atheism
Spouse(s) Priscilla Chan (m. 2012)
Relatives Randi, Donna and Arielle
(sisters)
Awards Time Person of the Year 2010
Website
Facebook.com/Zuck
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (born May 14, 1984) is an American computer programmer and internet entrepreneur. He is best known as one of five co-founders of the social networking website Facebook. As of April 2013, Zuckerberg is the chairman and chief executive of Facebook, Inc.[5][7] and in 2013 his personal wealth was estimated to be US$16.8 billion.[8]

Together with his college roommates and fellow Harvard University students Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, Zuckerberg launched Facebook from Harvard's dormitory rooms.[9] The group then introduced Facebook onto other campuses nationwide and moved to Palo Alto, California, United States (U.S.) shortly afterwards. In 2007, at the age of 23, Zuckerberg became a billionaire as a result of Facebook[10] and the number of Facebook users worldwide reached a total of one billion in 2012. Zuckerberg was involved in various legal disputes that were initiated by others in the group, who claimed a share of the company based upon their involvement during the development phase of Facebook.[11]

Since 2010, Time magazine has named Zuckerberg among the 100 wealthiest and most influential people in the world as a part of its Person of the Year distinction.[12][13][14] In 2011, Zuckerberg ranked first on the list of the "Most Influential Jews in the World" by The Jerusalem Post and has since consistently topped the list every year as of 2013.[15][16] Zuckerberg was played by actor Jesse Eisenberg in the 2010 film The Social Network, in which the rise of Facebook is portrayed.[17]

Other depictions

Zuckerberg voiced himself on an episode of The Simpsons, "Loan-a Lisa", which first aired on October 3, 2010. In the episode, Lisa Simpson and her friend Nelson encounter Zuckerberg at an entrepreneurs' convention. Zuckerberg tells Lisa that she does not need to graduate from college to be wildly successful, referencing Bill Gates and Richard Branson as examples.[88]

On October 9, 2010, Saturday Night Live lampooned Zuckerberg and Facebook.[89] Andy Samberg played Zuckerberg. The real Zuckerberg was reported to have been amused: "I thought this was funny."[90]

Stephen Colbert awarded a "Medal of Fear" to Zuckerberg at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear on October 30, 2010, "because he values his privacy much more than he values yours".[91]

Use of other social networks

Zuckerberg created an account with Google+ soon after the social network was unveiled, saying he sees it as a "validation for his vision" of online social networking.[92] By July 2011, Zuckerberg had become the most followed user on Google+, outranking Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.[93] As of March 6, 2012, his ranking has dropped to 184 on the service, behind Page and Brin.[94] His public profile is minimal with one photo and a bio that reads "I make things".[95]

Zuckerberg has maintained a private account on Twitter under the username "zuck", and in 2009 he revealed that the public account "finkd" also belonged to him.[96]

Philanthropy

Zuckerberg donated an undisclosed amount to Diaspora, an open-source personal web server that implements a distributed social networking service. He called it a "cool idea".[47]

Zuckerberg founded the Start-up: Education foundation.[97][98] On September 22, 2010, it was reported that Zuckerberg had donated $100 million to Newark Public Schools, the public school system of Newark, New Jersey.[99][100] Critics noted the timing of the donation as being close to the release of The Social Network, which painted a somewhat negative portrait of Zuckerberg.[101][102] Zuckerberg responded to the criticism, saying, "The thing that I was most sensitive about with the movie timing was, I didn’t want the press about The Social Network movie to get conflated with the Newark project. I was thinking about doing this anonymously just so that the two things could be kept separate."[101] Newark Mayor Cory A. Booker stated that he and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie had to convince Zuckerberg's team not to make the donation anonymously.[101]

On December 9, 2010, Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and investor Warren Buffett signed a promise they called the "Giving Pledge", in which they promised to donate to charity at least half of their wealth over the course of time, and invited others among the wealthy to donate 50% or more of their wealth to charity.[103][104][105]

On December 18, 2012, Zuckerberg announced a donation of 18 million Facebook shares to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, which at the time of the donation were worth a total of about $500 million USD.[106][107][108][109]

Contents

[hide]
1 Early life
2 Software developer
2.1 Early years
2.2 College years
3 Career
3.1 Facebook
3.2 Wirehog
3.3 Platform, Beacon and Connect
3.4 Legal controversies
4 Depictions in media
4.1 The Social Network
4.2 Other depictions
5 Use of other social networks
6 Philanthropy
7 Politics
8 Personal life
8.1 Marriage
8.2 Interests
9 References
10 External links
Early life

Zuckerberg was born in 1984 in White Plains, New York.[18] He is the son of Karen (née Kempner), a psychiatrist, and Edward Zuckerberg, a dentist.[19] He and his three sisters, Randi, Donna, and Arielle,[2] were brought up in Dobbs Ferry, New York.[2] Zuckerberg was raised Jewish, had his bar mitzvah when he turned 13,[20][21] and has since described himself as an atheist.[21][22][23][24]

At Ardsley High School, Zuckerberg excelled in classics. He transferred to Phillips Exeter Academy in his junior year, where he won prizes in science (math, astronomy and physics) and classical studies (on his college application, Zuckerberg claimed that he could read and write French, Hebrew, Latin, and ancient Greek). He was a fencing star and captain of the fencing team.[23][25][26][27] In college, he was known for reciting lines from epic poems such as The Iliad.[25]

Software developer

Early years

Zuckerberg began using computers and writing software in middle school. His father taught him Atari BASIC Programming in the 1990s, and later hired software developer David Newman to tutor him privately. Newman calls him a "prodigy", adding that it was "tough to stay ahead of him". Zuckerberg took a graduate course in the subject at Mercy College near his home while still in high school. He enjoyed developing computer programs, especially communication tools and games. In one such program, since his father's dental practice was operated from their home, he built a software program he called "ZuckNet" that allowed all the computers between the house and dental office to communicate with each other. It is considered a "primitive" version of AOL's Instant Messenger, which came out the following year.[2]

According to writer Jose Antonio Vargas, "some kids played computer games. Mark created them." Zuckerberg himself recalls this period: "I had a bunch of friends who were artists. They'd come over, draw stuff, and I'd build a game out of it." However, notes Vargas, Zuckerberg was not a typical "geek-klutz", as he later became captain of his prep school fencing team and earned a classics diploma. Napster co-founder Sean Parker, a close friend, notes that Zuckerberg was "really into Greek odysseys and all that stuff", recalling how he once quoted lines from the Roman epic poem Aeneid, by Virgil, during a Facebook product conference.[2]

During Zuckerberg's high school years, under the company name Intelligent Media Group, he built a music player called the Synapse Media Player that used artificial intelligence to learn the user's listening habits, which was posted to Slashdot[28] and received a rating of 3 out of 5 from PC Magazine.[29] Microsoft and AOL tried to purchase Synapse and recruit Zuckerberg, but he chose instead to enroll at Harvard in September 2002.[citation needed]