 |
| MARK ZUCKERBERG |
Mark Zuckerberg is currently the
chief executive officer and President of Facebook. He is a software developer,
an internet entrepreneur and known for inventing Facebook. He is currently ranked
as one of the 100 wealthiest and most influential people in the world (by Time
magazine in 2010). Mark is one of the most successful software developers the
world has ever seen. He currently has a net wealth of $38.6 billion (by Forbes
June 2015) and is currently ranked by Forbes as one of the top 100 richest men
in the world. At the age of 23, Zuckerberg became the youngest billionaire in
the world as a result of Facebook's success.
Early Life
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg was
born on May 14, 1984 in White Plains, New York and was raised in Dobbs Ferry a
suburb of New York. Mark was born to Karen Kempner and
Edward Zuckerberg. He was born to a well educated family, his father was a
dentist who ran a dental clinic in the family house and his mother was a psychiatrist. He is the only son and the second born of three other sisters:
Randi, Arielle and Donna.
Mark’s
father taught him Atari Basic Programming at an early age, so Mark begun
showing great interest in computers just at Elementary school. At age 12 he developed
his first non-commercial software he called “Zucknet.” The software was used at
home by the family to communicate through their computers in their rooms
without moving. His father also used it at his dental clinic to communicate
with the receptionist. Mark’s father soon noticed the great interest and
expertise his son has started showing so he hired a computer tutor, David
Newman, who gave Mark further private lessons on programming. Whiles at High
School, Mark studied a graduate course in programming at Mercy College located
closer to their home. Within that time he coded a version of media player
software named: Synapse. Synapse attracted the attention of some giants
companies including AOL and Microsoft. These companies
requested to buyout the software and also hired the teenager before graduation.
Mark refused to accept all these offers because he had the plan of starting his
own software company. He also developed computer games which he played with
friends.
 |
| CHILDHOOD |
Mark started his high school
education at Ardsley High School where he was known for his excellence in
classics. In his sophomore year at Ardsley, he transferred to Philips Exeter
Academy a preparatory school located in New Hampshire. According to Mark he
transferred because he wanted a school that focused more on mathematics and
computer studies. The idea of facebook originates from Philips Exeter Academy.
The school had a student directory, “the Photo Address Book”, which the
students popularly called it “The Facebook”. The directory showed every
student’s picture, class, friends, and telephone numbers.
Birth of Facebook
In 2002 he enrolled in Harvard and soon after matriculation became
popular on campus for his programming prowess. He majored in psychology and
computer science. In his sophomore year at Harvard he wrote a program named
CourseMatch which made students chose their class and also enabled them to form
study groups.
He later created another program
he called Facemash. Facemash was a site that allowed the students at Harvard to
vote for the most attractive student from a choice of photos. The pictures would
be ranked based on the votes in order to select the hottest student. Within
some weeks of operating the site, the college authorities shut down the
software claiming it had prevented students from accessing the internet and had
also overshadowed one of Harvard’s networks. Some students also criticised
Zuckerberg for using their pictures without seeking their approval.
After the collapse of Fasemash,
three of his fellow students: Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya
Narendra approached him to help them build a social networking site called
Harvard Connection (renamed ConnectU). Zuckerberg helped them in coding
HarvardConnection but still had the idea of starting his own commercial
software. Whiles working on HarvardConnection he got a great idea and later
resigned from the group to start his own social networking site.
On February 4, 2004 he launched a
site, thefacebook.com, in his dormitory room with his friends at Harvard. With
this site he allowed users to create their own profile due to the criticism he
received from students on Facemash. With the help of his roommates, Chris
Hughes and Dustin Moskovitz, more features were added to the site.TheFacebook.com
soon became popular on Harvard campus and with the help of some friends it
spread through Columbia University, Yale, Stanford and other University
campuses. The initial requirement for registration was an email address which
shows your membership in an educational institution.
In the summer of 2004, Mark
together with some friends and the two other roommates moved to Palo Alto, California
to establish their headquarters. Mark planned of coming back to Harvard but
later decided to dropout and concentrate more on his business. At Palo Alto,
Zuckerberg approached a venture capitalist, Peter Thiel (co-founder of Paypal),
to invest in their company. Peter Thiel invested US$500,000. In May 2005,
Facebook received their highest investment from a venture capitalist, Accel
Partners.
In 2005, TheFacebook.com was
renamed: Facebook.com and registration was opened to high school students but
later the public also showed massive interest in the site. By September 2006,
Facebook had been opened to the public with normal e-mail address as the
requirement. Facebook had more than 1million users signed up just within a year
of its launch and over one billion users in 2012.
When the registered users were
increasing Mark hired the services of other programmers. After the launch of
thefacebook.com, Mark was accused by the friends who invited him to help create
HarvardConnection.com. They claimed Mark had stolen part of their idea. Prior to
the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of facebook.com these friends filled a lawsuit
against Mark which entitled them to $1.2 million of facebook shares. These shares
were worth US$300 million at Facebook's IPO.
ACQUISITIONS
Some companies offered to buyout facebook.com with huge amounts but
Mark rejected their offers. Later in 2007, Microsoft paid $240 million to buy a
1.6 percent stake in Facebook.
In April 2012, Facebook acquired Instagram for $1billion and WhatsApp
for $22billion in October 2014.
Personal Life
Mark got married on May 19, 2012
to his college friend, Priscilla chan. The couple are happily living in Palo
Alto, California.
No comments:
Post a Comment