There is hardly a soul on this planet today who is not familiar with FaceBook and most likely if you are not using it, you either just returned from Jupiter or are unearthly alien. Jokes apart, the FaceBook is a symbol of online social connectivity and has literally changed our lives, not only in cyberspace but in real world as well.
Face Behind FaceBook
But do you know the history of the main person behind FB, namely Mark Zuckerberg. If not, then this is the right time to get to know the person through this article. Normally people become famous in their old age or are remembered as a legend after they pass on with their earthly journey, but Mark is a living legend and the brain behind FaceBook, so let us move on to get to know him better.
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Life History
Life history of Mark Zuckerberg startd on 14th May 1984 when he was born in New York. He was born to a well to do family. Mark Zuckerberg spent early years of his life in the village of Dobbs Ferry. His father Edward Zuckerberg was a dentist my profession and mother Karen Zuckerberg was a psychiatrist. However, she retired after the birth of her four children. Mark Zuckerberg was thus born to well educated parents. He was the eldest of the four siblings. His siblings were Randi, Donna and Arielle.
Mark Zuckerberg was a smart kid and he was technically very strong. His knowledge of computers was quite deep. He was just twelve when he came up with a messaging program. He had prepared this using Atari BASIC. His dad used this in his clinic. This would help the receptionist to inform him of a new patient without yelling it across. This messaging system was very useful and effective. It was unexpected from a kid who was just twelve years old. Mark Zuckerberg had named this system Zucknet. The family of Mark Zuckerberg used the technology of Zucknet to communicate within the house. Mark Zuckerberg had also created a lot of computer games with his friends. These were just for fun. Mark Zuckerberg claims that some of his friends were artists. When they would come to meet Mark Zuckerberg they would draw images that Mark Zuckerberg would turn into images on the computer.
Interest in Computers
It was quite obvious that Mark Zuckerberg was not an ordinary child. He had immense potential. Mark Zuckerberg’s parents were supportive and they encouraged Mark. They also hired a computer tutor for him. He was named David Newman. David later accepted that he knew Mark Zuckerberg was a child prodigy from the day he met him. Mark Zuckerberg was already doing graduate courses when David Newman visited him. Mark Zuckerberg later joined Philips Exeter Academy. It was an exclusive course that he took up. Mark Zuckerberg was good with fencing and he became the captain of the school team.He was very good in literature too and he earned a diploma in classics. Despite of all these side activities he did actively remain interested in computers. He continued to develop new programs. He was extremely talented and new computers well. He was still in school when he had come up with the Pandora, which was a music software. Many companies like AOL and Microsoft wanted to buy the software but Mark declined all the offers.
The Harvard Connection
After his graduation in 2002 Mark Zuckerberg went to study at Harvard University. He became quite popular in campus for the immense knowledge of computers that he had. He came up with a program called Course Match that would allow the students to select the classes. Similarly he came up with fun software called Facemash. Using this he could compare the pictures of two students and users could vote who was more attractive. This program became very popular.
Mark Zuckerberg was encouraged by his fellow students to work on a social networking site. They wanted to name it Harvard Connection. Mark Zuckerberg soon came out of this project and he started to work on another project. He called it Facebook. In this social network one could upload pictures and share it with others. In 2004 Mark Zuckerberg decided to drop college and work full time on Facebook. He wanted Facebook to be the social network for the world. Soon Facebook had a million users all across the world. In 2005 Accel partners invested 12.7 million dollars on the project of Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg and his company promoted Facebook even more. He also allowed access to many other colleges and the users of Facebook raised to 5.5 million users. Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook became more popular and more companies wanted to invest in the poject. Mark rejected all the offers and he continued to promote Facebook and ensure that more users join the same.
IP Violation Charges
In 2006 Mark Zuckerberg got into trouble as the owners of Harvard Connection claimed that their idea was stolen by Mark, though he denied the charges. The further investigation did prove that Mark Zuckerberg had stolen the intellectual property of Harvard Connection. Mark Zuckerberg had to pay sixty five million as settlement to Harvard Connection. The dispute continued till 2011. In 2009 the book “The Accidental Billionaire” was written on the life of Mark Zuckerberg. The book was criticised as there were a lot of fiction elements in the book. The author Ben Mezrich later sold the rights to Aaron Sorkin who made a book out of it named “The Social Network”. The movie became extremely popular and it also got about eight academy award nominations.
Book, Movie & IPO
Mark Zuckerberg claimed that the movie was fabricated and many details were wrong. Mark, in spite of all the criticism, continued to be popular and successful. He is the face of the Facebook and is no less than a celebrity. There will hardly be a person who would not know the name of Mark Zuckerberg. He was named the person of the year in 2010. Mark Zuckerberg was listed in the Forbes list. He defeated Steve Jobs of Apple in ranking. It is belived that the fortune of Mark Zuckerberg is about US$6.9 billion.
Mark Zuckerberg is also known for the charity that he does. Facebook went public in 2012 and the company raised $16 billion. This is the highest IPO in history. On May 2012 Mark Zuckerberg got married to his long term girl friend. Her name is Priscilla Chan. They met during their college in Harvard. In 2013 Mark Zuckerberg was named in the fortune 500 list. He was the youngest to feature in the list.
The List Continues…
We hope that you found this article on life history of Mark Zuckerberg interesting. He is indeed an incredible achiever. He is an example for many kids all across the world. Life history of Mark Zuckerberg proves that perhaps nothing is impossible.
Interesting Fact
Do you know that the popular website Facebook was earlier named as “The Facebook” and the person who suggested to Mark to drop “The” and name it only “Facebook” was a friend of Mark, named Sean Parker, another cyber legend and owner of Napster website.
