Who is Zuckerberg and what did he create? Mark Zuckerberg - the most interesting facts from the life of an American programmer

Mark Zuckerberg's success story is a combination of talent, cold calculation and a series of incredible coincidences that allowed the genius to become the youngest billionaire in world history. Having founded the social network Facebook in 2004, already in 2010 he was included in the Forbes magazine list with a personal capital of $ 7 billion and ranks 29th in the ranking of the richest Americans.

 

Dossier:

You can search for a long time for the reason for Mark Zuckerberg’s incredible success, looking at his actions and biographical milestones through the prism of time, and not find answers. After all, the history of any public person, and even more so a billionaire, is covered with mysterious dark spots. But we can say with confidence that he lit the star of his fame with my own hands.

The young genius made his passion for programming the meaning of his life. When creating a trial version of Facebook in an ordinary student dormitory, I didn’t even think about billions. He dreamed of uniting friends, but was able to bring together billions of people on the planet.

“The thing that really excites me is fulfilling the mission of creating an open society,” M. Zuckerberg.

It was his friends who not only helped Mark launch his project, but also suggested how to expand his business and start making money. However, life surrounded by millions of friends and billions of dollars was not carefree. Ill-wishers and envious people, lies and deceptions, intrigues and betrayal appeared.

“You won't find 500 million friends without making a few enemies,” - M. Zuckerberg.

But even lawsuits They couldn't get him off track. There is always a smile on his face, he is confident in himself and clearly knows in which direction to move next.

Over the past seven years, he has increased his wealth 10 times: from $7 billion in 2010 to $70.1 billion in 2017. Billions daily bring millions in profits - in 9 months of this year his wealth increased by $14.1 billion. But the goal is so and what remains is building a community that can communicate freely throughout the world.

Dynamics rapid growth states are clearly visible on the graph.

Figure 1. Dynamics of growth of Mark Zuckerberg’s fortune for 2009-2017.
Source: Forbes

Mark Zuckerberg has 96,934,567 followers as friends on his personal Facebook page. But 99% of them were not able to achieve the same success in business. So what is the secret to taking off? In a randomly caught wave, competent calculation, coincidence? Let's try to find the answers in a short biography of Mark Zuckerberg. And even though he is young, he can already boast of not so much the quantity as the quality of the years he has lived.

Childhood achievements

Mark himself characterizes himself as a hacker by vocation, but his first achievements are related to to a greater extent with the development of programs and games. Even in childhood Jewish boy, born May 14, 1984 in White Plains, New York, showed extraordinary abilities.

Figure 2. Mark as a child.
Source: 24smi website

For his 10th birthday, he received a computer as a gift, but perceived new technology not as an opportunity for entertainment, but as a way to make a dream come true. Although in his case it is difficult to draw a clear line between hobby and self-development. Approaching the issue like an adult, Mark independently began to study literature on programming and put his knowledge into practice. As a result, the first developments appeared:

• the zuck.net messaging network, which his family appreciated;
• computer version board game"Risk";
• Winamp program is a self-learning MP3 player capable of recognizing listener preferences.

It was this latest development that caught Microsoft's attention. But the programmer refused advantageous offer, posting your brainchild online.

“Inspiration is not for sale,” M. Zuckerberg.

The gifted boy's interests were not limited to programming. He was interested in mathematics and science, fencing and ancient languages. Broad outlook and determined future fate- he became a student at Harvard, but chose the faculty of psychology.

When passion becomes mania: scandalous projects from university years

How to stop the flight of thoughts and slow down before the line that is dangerous to cross? Mark never saw this line and thoughtlessly moved forward, obeying his ideas. Fortunately, these extraordinary solutions were closely related to programming.

One of these spontaneous projects was a website where the programmer posted 500 paintings with a request for friends to describe the works of art in the comments. In this way, the careless student solved the problem of preparing for the exam. Thanks to his extraordinary approach, the innovator received credit, but it was the most harmless project.

Figure 3. Zuckerberg with friends.
Source: 24smi website

For the creation of the FaceMash website, which “downloaded” the Harvard server, Mark had to answer to the administration. At first glance, the idea was humorous and harmless. After a quarrel with a girl, a programmer hacked into the university network, downloaded photos of female students and put them up in pairs for comparative voting. All programming work took 2 hours. The poll attracted the attention of 500 students, and the server went down, which showed the vulnerability of the university’s Internet security.

"Encroachment on privacy“- part of the commission’s guilty verdict did not frighten the genius, but gave rise to the idea of ​​​​creating social network.

But the opening of the new project “The Facebook” was not without scandal. Mark was accused of stealing the idea by the Narendra brothers, who hired the programmer to complete the development of HarvardConnection.com, an intra-Harvard social network.

“Whoever makes a comfortable chair should not pay everyone who makes chairs,” Zuckerberg will say at the court hearing.

For the idea “flying in the air,” Mark still had to pay his opponents $45 million in 2009.

The development of “The Facebook”, which the student was engaged in together with his fellow students (Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskowitz, Andrew McCollum and Christopher Hughes), took up all his time. There was simply not enough time to study, and the choice was not made in favor of education.

Mark leaves the university walls, where he was destined to return. In May 2017, being a famous billionaire, Zuckerberg received a university diploma.

Figure 4. Zuckerberg with his parents at his graduation ceremony at Harvard.
Source: Instagram page

“Mom, I always told you I would come back and get my degree,” Zuckerberg.
Source: personal page on Instagram

After receiving his diploma, he gave a heartfelt speech to Harvard graduates:

A new round of fate from Facebook

The birthday of the popular network is considered to be February 4, 2004. But the site received its modern design, name and concept with the arrival of Sean Parker in the project.

An eccentric, extraordinary hacker, gushing with ideas, immediately found mutual language with Zuckerberg.

They divided the roles perfectly. Mark, as a programmer, worked with his friends on technical side, and Sean took care of all organizational and administrative issues.

“I usually woke up in the bedroom, looked into the kitchen and went to program. I had a girlfriend at the time, but when she suddenly disappeared, I wasn't too upset. After all, I always had Facebook to throw a good party."

The result of them joint activities was a change in the name and design of the site, as well as:

• team relocation to Silicon Valley;
• attracting investors to the project - it was Parker who achieved cooperation with Peter Thiel, Hoffman and Pincus;
• access to new continents;
• increase in subscribers to 1 million people.

Mark Zuckerberg was born in one of the largest cities in the world - New York. The boy grew up in big family: In addition to his mother, who was a psychiatrist, and his father, who worked as a dentist, he was surrounded by three sisters as a child. He became familiar with technological progress already while studying at primary school, he was fascinated by programming. He was able to devote as much time as possible to his main hobby after the appearance of the first computer - this happened when he was a sixth grader. Soon he managed to independently create a computer game, and then an entire program for recognizing the musical tastes and preferences of listeners.

Microsoft offered Mark $2 million for this invention, but the young man refused the reward. In addition to programming, Zuckerberg managed to practice fencing and master ancient languages, in which he showed serious interest. Higher education Mark received his studies at the prestigious Harvard, where he entered in 2002.

Facebook founder career

During his years at the university, Mark gained serious popularity due to a random idea - he created a website on which he posted photographs of Harvard students and made it possible to vote for those he liked. In a matter of hours, the number of visitors to the site increased by hundreds, and soon among the registered users there were not only students from Harvard, but also Stanford and Yale. This is how the prototype of the world famous social network Facebook emerged, which was launched on February 4, 2004.

However, Mark also had ill-wishers, they were Divya Naredra and the Winklevoss twins, who initially put forward ideas to the university leadership about the possibility of additional communication between Harvard students. Zuckerberg was supposed to be involved in programming the future site, but it was never possible to implement the idea with such a composition. Therefore, after creation Facebook Mark A was accused of stealing other people's plans, but he categorically denied this because the ideas about the social network were vague and unclear. Only he himself succeeded in the right way bring them to life.

For further development of the project, which was not long in coming, Zuckerberg needed additional financial investments. We managed to get them again completely by accident - the famous programmer Sean Parker introduced Mark to successful businessman Peter Thiels, who decided to invest $500 thousand in Facebook. From then on, Mark began to focus exclusively on his social network and improve it, he even quit studying at Harvard for this. The success of Facebook after Thiels' help was obvious: already in the year of its creation it counted more than 1 million people as users. Zuckerberg earned $1.5 billion from this popular site, making him the youngest billionaire in the history of mankind.

In 2010, Mark became “person of 2010” according to the American Time magazine.

Personal life of Mark Zuckerberg

He spends most of his time working on Facebook. But also romantic relationship present in his life - since 2002, he dated Priscilla Chan, whom he met while studying at Harvard. On May 19, 2012, Mark took .

They managed to surprise everyone they knew with their decision to get married and first announced to their loved ones that they were going to celebrate Priscilla receiving her doctorate in medicine. As soon as the guests arrived at their house, it was announced to them that in fact a wedding would take place here.

Photo: GettyImages/Fotobank.ru

By allowing people to share information, we make the world more transparent.
Mark Zuckerberg.

The versatility of human nature knows no bounds. Who would have thought that the youngest billionaire in the world and the most tastelessly dressed male celebrity, an inventive programmer and a prominent polyglot, the most influential Jew on the planet and a budding swordsman - all these are characteristics of the same person.

His name - Mark Zuckerberg.

I will dwell in a little more detail on the legal conflicts that befell Mark Zuckerberg after the launch of Facebook.

The offended guys from Harvard Connection were the first to take on Mark. Just 6 days after the historic launch of Facebook.com, they filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg. According to them, the talented programmer not only did not fulfill his promise (see above), but also used their ideas to create his world-famous brainchild. In fact, it was about the theft of intellectual property. Litigation in this case lasted from February 2004 to June 2008, when the injured party received 1.2 million common shares of Facebook and $20 million in cash as compensation. In total this is about 65 million dollars.

The second person who laid claim to part of the social network Facebook was its first sponsor, Eduardo Saverin. It is not entirely clear what exactly the once friends Mark and Eduardo did not share, but the result of their disagreement in 2009 was 5% of the company’s shares for Eduardo. At that time it was about 1 billion dollars.

In 2010, a certain Paul Seglia appeared on the life horizon of Mark Zuckerberg. The latter, insisting on his investment in the programmer back in 2003, laid claim to 84% of Facebook.

However, Paul never managed to benefit from the generosity of the creator of Facebook. In 2012, he was arrested on suspicion of fraud and fabrication of evidence against Mark Zuckerberg.

The most, the most, the most...

With legal claims - back side wealth and popularity. And they grew and continue to grow by leaps and bounds for Mark Zuckerberg. Along with them, all sorts of “titles and regalia” rained down on him. Only the most interesting of them are listed below.

• 2010- Forbes magazine recognizes Mark as the youngest billionaire in the world (in March his fortune was estimated at $4 billion). In addition, another world-famous publication, Time, calls Mark “person of the year.” This year can also be considered a landmark year for Mark Zuckerberg due to the fact that David Fincher’s film “The Social Network” is being released on big screens. Who do you think served as the prototype for the main character?! Thus, Mark was filmed during his lifetime. But he was only 26 then...


• 2011- Mark Zuckerberg is hailed as the most influential Jew on the planet. By the way, he retains this “title” to this day. In the same year, Mark received very dubious recognition from the world community - GQ magazine named him the most tastelessly dressed billionaire.


• year 2013- the same Forbes estimates Mark’s fortune at $19 billion, which means that the creator of Facebook has increased his income almost 5 times in 3 years. This absolute record for young self-made billionaires.

Another Mark Zuckerberg

With the title “the very best,” Mark was forced to begin to behave more publicly. Just like the rich and famous do. At least that part of them that is conscientious.

In September 2010, Mark Zuckerberg spun off own funds$100 million to save the Newark public school system (New Jersey, USA). Evil tongues say that this was done for the sole purpose of whitening his name after the release of the aforementioned film “The Social Network,” in which the image of the young billionaire turned out to be very controversial.

I would not share this point of view, if only because already in December 2010, Mark Zuckerberg joined the so-called “Giving Pledge” - a philanthropic initiative of Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and George Lucas. Let me remind you that at one time these billionaires were the first to declare that after their death at least half of their fortune would be used for charitable purposes.

Having taken on such noble obligations, Mark did not stop doing charity work. In December 2012, he donated $500 million to further development young companies in Silicon Valley.

Mark Zuckerberg’s philanthropic thoughts were also manifested in the development of Internet projects other than Facebook. Let's say he became the leader of the FWD.us movement, whose goal is to optimize immigration legislation and the US education system.

Moreover, in August 2013, Mark Zuckerberg launched the Internet new project- Internet.org. Its task is truly epoch-making - to enable 5 billion people who still do not have the Internet to use it. How this will happen and whether it will be implemented in practice at all, time will tell. But the idea itself is worthy of the highest praise!

Rich "nerds" are people too...

And nothing human is alien to them. It turns out that Mark Zuckerberg has a personal life and it is connected with Priscilla Chen. He met her in his second year at Harvard.

The couple’s relationship has stood the test of time, for it was only in 2010 that Mark invited his future wife to move in with him in Palo Alto. The girl agreed and on May 19, 2012 they got married.

It is especially worth remembering the originality of the wedding ceremony. About 100 people gathered in Mark's backyard. They all thought they were visiting Zuckerberg on the occasion of his wife's graduation as a doctor (Priscilla is a pediatrician). However, it turned out that they were invited to a wedding. Another joke from Mark, you know...

Bonus!

Mark Elliot Zuckerberg

One of the successful young businessmen in the whole world. But we want to tell you, not about money or wealth, but simply about a man - a young Genius. Date and place of birth: May 14, 1984, White Plains, New York, USA.

American programmer and entrepreneur in the field of Internet technologies, dollar billionaire, one of the developers and founders of the social network Facebook. Head of Facebook Inc.

Mark was born on May 14, 1984 and grew up in the New York suburb of Dobbs Ferry. He was the second of four children and only son in an intelligent family of a dentist and a psychiatrist. He was the second child and the only boy of 4 children in the family; his sisters are Randi (eldest), Donna and Ariel.

His interest in programming arose almost in elementary school. When Mark was 11 years old, he created the zuck.net network.

Mark's first computer, a Quantex 486DX based on an Intel 486, ran Windows 3.1. His father gave him a computer when Mark was nine.

IN school years engaged in computer programming, developed network version games "Risk".

Also, while still at school, he and a friend wrote a program for the MP3-player Winamp, which allowed the computer to analyze the user’s musical preferences and independently create playlists that were ideal for him. given time. After posting the program on the Internet for free access, Microsoft was ready to pay for the “music box,” but the creator avoided the deal under the pretext that “inspiration is not for sale.”

Mark Zuckerberg did not complete his higher education: in 2002 he entered Harvard University, where he studied at the Faculty of Psychology until 2004. At the same time, Mark attended IT courses. He indicated his area of ​​interest as “C, C++, Java, Visual Basic, VBscript, JavaScript, PHP and ASP.” Zuckerberg has repeatedly characterized himself as a hacker by vocation.

On a summer night in 2003, when Mark Zuckerberg was suffering from insomnia in his Harvard dorm room, the future Internet tycoon had been dumped by his girlfriend and was drowning his grievances with a good dose of whiskey. “In my fevered brain, the idea arose to make a site called Facemash,” Zuckerberg later recalled. “I decided to hack the Harvard information database, get out photographs of students and place the faces of sheep and cows next to each of them. And to make it funnier, I came up with a poll with the question “Which of them is sexier?” At eleven in the evening the process was in full swing, and a couple of hours later Mark launched a website with photographs of female students in pairs with a call to vote which of the two was more attractive.

Zuckerberg, of course, didn’t forget about his ex-girlfriend either: the first text entry published on his online blog was the sacramental phrase “Jessica Alona is a bitch.” After Mark's site was visited by more than twenty thousand people in a couple of hours, and the network collapsed, he appeared before Harvard's special commission on computer hacking.

Together with Chris Hughes and Dustin Moskowitz, he began creating the social network Facebook. Financial assistance he was assisted by a student of Brazilian origin, Eduardo Saverin.

Joining forces with friends, Zuckerberg creates a social network, initially called “The Facebook,” allowing users to create profiles, upload photos and communicate with each other. After completing his second year, Mark dropped out of school, devoting himself entirely to the site, and transferred the created company to Palo Alto, California. By the end of 2004, the social network Facebook already had 1 million users.

Zuckerberg sees green and red colors poorly, but blue very well. That is why the latter is the main color of the site.

Sean Parker, one of the creators of the file-sharing program Napster, introduced Zuckerberg to Peter Thiel, co-founder of the PayPal payment system. An experienced businessman, after a fifteen-minute conversation, invested the red-haired youth for 500 thousand dollars. Zuckerberg wrote an application to the university for an indefinite period academic leave, as another famous Harvard dropout, Bill Gates, once did.

In 2005, the venture capital firm Accel Partners invested in the network, which at that time was open only to students educational institutions Ivy League, $12.7 million. Zuckerberg's company opens access to other colleges, higher education and international schools, and by the end of 2005 the number of subscribers exceeded 5.5 million.

His attempts to remove Saverin from managing the company in 2005 became the subject of legal proceedings.

In 2006, the creators of “Harvard Connection” claim that Zuckerberg stole the idea from them and demand damages. Initially, the parties reach an agreement on compensation in the amount of 65 million US dollars, but legal arguments in the case will last until 2011.

“I’m constantly accused of things I didn’t do,” Zuckerberg wrote on his personal website. “The Harvard Connection trio is trying to do just that and prove that I stole their non-existent ideas.” But the fact is that ideas for creating a social network for Harvard were in the air! I just inhaled them in the right way."

IN 2007 Microsoft company acquired a 1.6% stake in Facebook for an impressive amount of $240 million, as well as the rights to place its advertising on this resource until 2011.

In 2009, fate threw Zuckerberg another challenge when the published book “The Reluctant Billionaire” by Ben Mezrich broke sales records. The author manages to sell the rights to screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, and the critically acclaimed film The Social Network wins eight Academy Awards.

In 2010, The Times magazine named Mark “Person of the Year.” That same year, Forbes placed it at number 35 on its "400 List", valuing the network at US$6.9 billion.

On December 8, 2010, Mark Zuckerberg announced that he had joined the Giving Pledge, a philanthropic campaign by billionaires Warren Buffett and Bill Gates.

On May 19, 2012, Mark Zuckerberg married his longtime girlfriend Priscilla Chan. Mark and Priscilla for a long time dreamed of adding to the family, but the girl had miscarriages. On December 2, 2015, the couple had a daughter, Maxima Chan (Max). On August 28, 2017, another daughter was born. She was named August.

In May 2012, Facebook made an initial public offering, raising $16 billion, making the company the largest publicly traded Internet project in history.

Today, the Facebook network has more than 1 billion users.

In 2012, Mark Zuckerberg flew to Russian Federation. After staying on its territory for three days, the young billionaire managed to complete many important missions. One of them was a meeting with the Prime Minister of Russia. Mark also gave a lecture for MSU students. To attend the meeting, you had to register. The number of applicants exceeded the capacity of the audience, so a lottery was held among those who signed up.

Zuckerberg came up with the name Facebook by accident when he came across a school book The Photo Address Book, which contained photographs and personal information of all students.

In May 2013, Facebook made the Fortune 500 list for the first time—and Zuckerberg, at age 28, became the youngest general director included in the list.

Mark Zuckerberg met his wife Priscilla Chan at one of the student parties at Harvard. They dated for nine years and finally legalized their relationship in 2012. The wedding ceremony took place in the circle of relatives and friends. Initially, the event was intended to celebrate the successful completion of studies future wife and the listing of Facebook shares on the stock exchange. However, the couple presented unexpected surprise and announced her wedding.

Mark Zuckerberg, his wife and children will donate 99 percent of the Facebook shares (today - about $45 billion) that they own to charity. The joyful couple made this statement after the birth of their daughter. The future should offer opportunities for everyone, regardless of their social status and financial well-being.

An interesting fact is that Zuckerberg supported the Diaspora project, which was a direct competitor to Facebook. Mark allocated $100 thousand for the development of an open source social network. The billionaire showed concern for the development of public schools in Newark. Mark Zuckerberg donated $100 million to improve them.

According to GQ magazine, Zuckenberg is the most tastelessly dressed billionaire.

Born in the same year as the founder of the popular VKontakte in the CIS, Pavel Durov.

In October 2014, Zuckerberg spent $100 million to buy plots of land on the north coast of Kauai, where he plans to build a 280-hectare family estate.

In December 2014, Mark was ranked 14th in the Forbes Top 15 with a net worth of $33.6 billion.

Favorite form of clothing is a sweatshirt. Almost as legendary as Steve Jobs' famous black turtleneck.

Facebook employees have been based in a new office in Palo Alto, California, since 2009. And all thanks to the joint efforts of the design studios Studio O+A, Virginie Manichon, KPFF – Consulting Engineers, Air Systems Inc., Elcor Electric and Brightworks. The design of the head office fully reflects the essence of the company as a social network that brings people together. The 13,935 square foot facility, formerly home to Agilent Technologies' manufacturing laboratory, now houses more than 700 employees previously scattered across ten separate offices in Palo Alto.

Source - Internet

Mark Zuckerberg is the most Interesting Facts from life American programmer updated: December 4, 2017 by: website