Brief biography of Mark Zuckerberg. Mark Zuckerberg: biography, interesting facts and photos

Mark Zuckerberg's children are two desired and long-awaited daughters, the youngest of whom is due to be born this year. According to the Facebook founder, they took a very long time to become parents - Mark Zuckerberg's wife was pregnant several times, and only two attempts were successful. During all this time, the relationship between Mark and Priscilla not only did not worsen, it became even stronger, and the joint struggle for happiness brought the spouses even closer together. Their eldest daughter Max was born in 2015, and this became the reason for one of richest people planet, whose net worth is estimated at fifty-three billion dollars, announced that during his lifetime he and his wife would give 99 percent of Facebook shares, which at that time were valued at forty-five billion dollars, to charity. These funds should go to charitable foundation Zuckerberg's Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which helps schools for the poor and those with serious illnesses.

In the photo - Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan

After the birth of his first daughter Maxima, or Max, as her parents call her, Mark happily plunged into the atmosphere of fatherhood and did not hesitate to change his daughter’s diapers, happily talking about it on social networks. In addition, he constantly posted photos of his eldest daughter in different images, for example, in a Jedi cloak and holding a lightsaber. The whole event was the first word spoken by Zuckerberg’s daughter, and it was the word “dog,” because Max adores their Hungarian shepherd dog Bista.

Zuckerberg met his future wife while studying at Harvard University, when he was not yet the founder of the world famous Facebook network, but was a simple programmer. Priscilla was by his side all the way to success, and on May 19, 2012 they got married. They held their modest wedding at Zuckerberg's house in Palo Alto, and the hundreds of guests who came to the celebration at first did not even know that they were going to the wedding, but thought that they were invited to celebrate Priscilla's graduation from the University of California.

Mark Zuckerberg's wife holds a doctorate in medicine, but now she devotes all her time not to her career, but to raising her daughter and preparing for a new birth. Since her first pregnancy was very difficult, Priscilla and her husband are doing everything to ensure that the second one proceeds without complications. Mark showed himself to be a very good husband, who did not give up and did not leave his Priscilla, who had big problems becoming a mother, but he really needed an heir. This once again confirms that good husbands and they do not become fathers, but are born, because only a responsible and worthy person is able to sympathize and empathize, to be strong and at the same time gentle, surrounding the woman he loves with care and not abandoning her in difficult times.

In the photo - Mark with his daughter Max

Mark Zuckerberg is a versatile person, whose main hobby since his school years was programming, and after acquiring the first computer in his life, he began to create computer games and various entertaining applications. But his range of interests was not limited to this - he was passionate about fencing and studying ancient languages.

Zuckerberg entered the prestigious Harvard University in 2002, and two years later began dating a Chinese woman, Priscilla Chan. Mark fell in love with her for her simplicity and openness and found a kindred spirit in her. Mark Zuckerberg's future wife always believed in the success of his creation project social network and supported him in all his endeavors.

They tried not to advertise their relationship, so when the rich young programmer admitted that his heart had not been free for a long time, it became a big discovery for many. What surprised everyone even more was that Mark Zuckerberg, who had great hopes for a luxurious future, chose not a stunning beauty, but a modestly and even, in the opinion of many, tastelessly dressed girl with an ordinary appearance. However, this did not bother Mark - he was happy with everything about his beloved, and their relationship only flourished and became stronger.

Mark Zuckerberg- founder and developer of the popular Facebook network, the youngest billionaire in history. In 2010, he was recognized as Person of the Year by American Time magazine. As the publication explains, the 26-year-old billionaire was elected person of the year for “uniting more than half a billion people and drawing a map of social relations between them, creating new system exchange of information, and changed our lives"

In 2010, the number of Facebook users exceeded 500 million people, and the figure of Zuckerberg was “mythologized” by Hollywood - in the fall of 2010, the film “The Social Network” was released on the screens about the history of the creation and development of Facebook.

« In a world where social structures above all, a virtual, publicly accessible dossier is an information bomb. And in general, if a person has brains, he simply does not have the moral right to work not for himself, giving most of his time and the results of his achievements to his employer.» Mark Zuckerberg

Success story, Biography of Mark Zuckerberg

Childhood, youth and student years Mark Zuckerberg

Mark was born on May 14, 1984 in White Plains in southeastern New York. He was the second of four children and only son in an intelligent family of a dentist and a psychiatrist.

Mark learned that the world is divided into programmers and users when he was 10 years old and received his first PC (Quantex 486DX on an Intel 486 processor). Users are working on the computer. Programmers use computers to change the world. After the computer appeared, Mark felt terribly grown up and at first literally did not leave his new toy. After a couple of months, he got tired of simply changing the background color, and he began to read smart books, deciding to learn something more useful, namely programming.

Reading was good for me. Mark mastered the programming wisdom perfectly and, while still studying at high school, wrote several small programs, for example, a computer version of the popular board game Risk. But not all of his crafts were so harmless. In principle, Zuckerberg himself says that he would not like to immediately create something global, but would be happy to do a bunch of cool little things, and the Synapse program is one of those. He wrote it for himself. The program was a smart mp3 player, which, having carefully studied the owner’s preferences and found out what music, at what time of day and how often, he listened to, was able to generate playlists independently, “guessing” which tracks the owner would want to hear right now. Both Microsoft and AOL became interested in the unusual program, and both Microsoft and AOL became interested in Zuckerberg himself. However, the young talent rejected the giants' offers to purchase Synapse, and then politely rejected their invitations to cooperate. Just like that, Mark gave up several tens, and maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars, and a job in one of the top IT corporations in the world.

It’s surprising that with such passion, Zuckerberg found time for other activities: he did well in mathematics and natural sciences. He devoted himself enthusiastically to such an extraordinary sport as fencing. I immersed myself in antiquity, studying ancient languages. Once I spent three months of school holidays at a summer school taking ancient Greek language courses. True, I changed my mind about enrolling in the corresponding department, but I retained the ability to read and write in both classical languages. And at the university I chose a rather unexpected, although understandable, discipline - psychology.

My university performance was so-so: my passion for programming took up too much of my time. Sometimes preparing for exams required extraordinary solutions, as, for example, in the episode with 500 paintings in an art history course. There were two days left before the exams, and it was impossible to read anything about each painting. Zuckerberg quickly created a website, on each page of which he placed a painting, and asked fellow students to comment on the works. “After two hours,” the innovator recalls, comparing himself to Tom Sawyer, painting a fence with the help of commercial savvy, “every picture was overgrown with comments, and I passed that exam with flying colors.”

Creation of Facebook

There was a section on the Harvard internal computer network where students posted their photographs and personal information. The photographs were so-so - the usual front and profile, tense expressions on their faces. And then it occurred to young Mark to have some fun: he made a program that selected two random faces and offered to compare who was sexier. There was no end to those wishing to conduct a comparative analysis. By the evening of the first day, four thousand people had viewed the site. When the number of visitors exceeded twenty thousand, the server crashed due to overload. Mark appeared before the computer hacking commission. Of course, they didn’t pat Zuckerberg on the head for this - he received a disciplinary sanction, but, apparently, even then he noticed that this kind of thing arouses intense interest among the people. Harvard, by the way, still refuses to comment on that incident.

However, the basis for the future communication masterpiece had already been created. On February 4, 2004, Mark launched a social network called “The Facebook,” which was intended as a communication site for Harvard students. “The Facebook” has become popular among students mainly because of the convenience of self-organization in groups, courses and parties that already exist offline in universities. By opening “The Facebook” you could find out where your acquaintances live this year, which girls are cute and which are not, who, in the end, is this year’s newcomer... all this is very reminiscent of what Facebook is today.

After the launch of the site, Zuckerberg told the press that Facebook was written in just a week, and this idea simply matured in his head and was quickly implemented, “on the spot.” Fortunately, fellow students also helped - together with Mark, Eduardo Severin, Dustin Moskowitz, Andrew McCollum and Christopher Hughes were involved in the launch of the project.

Very quickly, the social network created by Zuckerberg outgrew the boundaries of the campus (Let me remind you that at that time there were no “classmates” and “Twitters”; they were cloned later); already in the spring of 2004, it included all Ivy League colleges. Users were invited to post photographs and any information about themselves - from scientific and creative interests to gastronomic and love preferences. And also photographs, photographs, photographs...

Serious and promising projects at the stage active development, as a rule, require substantial investments. But as life shows, these issues can be solved if there are determination.

Mark spent all the money his parents set aside to pay for his studies on the business, but naturally this was not enough for the megaproject. And so one summer Zuckerberg rushed to Silicon Valley, where interesting ideas, if you're lucky, they may get support. And again luck smiled on the assertive guy. Like the hero of the Finnish writer Martti Larni, who left home for matches and ended up in America, student Zuckerberg went on reconnaissance and got stuck in Palo Alto - the heart of Silicon Valley.

One evening on the street, he chanced upon Sean Parker, an Internet cult figure and one of the creators of the file-sharing program Napster. It turned out that Parker was moving to Palo Alto, but did not yet have an apartment. " We(Mark and his friends) we just invited him to spend the night with us", says Mark. It was Parker who 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 - did at one time.

Half a million is just a lot of money at first glance. Mark and his team perfected their brainchild in rented premises in Palo Alto, some sitting on wobbly chairs, some right on the floor. There was no ventilation in the rooms where the servers were located. Under the Californian summer heat at 45 degrees the plastic racks melted at the edges.

In November 2004, the number of users exceeded one million. Another six months later, with the help of Peter Thiel, the company managed to receive serious funds - $12.7 million from Accel Partners. In the fall of 2005, there were already more than 5 million active clients.

Soon the portal announced free registration for any user with a valid email address. The percentage of customers over 30 has grown significantly, and Facebook has established itself among the leaders of the Internet, consistently remaining the seventh most popular site in America.

In 2006, Zuckerberg began receiving the first purchase offers. At first the amounts were very cautious, but they began to increase quite quickly. They offered $750 million, but Mark refused and said that this was three times less than the amount about which serious discussions could be held. Later, at the already mentioned negotiations with Yahoo, there was talk of a billion, but Zuckerberg again said no. Rumors claim that there was also an offer from Google, and they gave more, but Facebook remained in the same hands, and the rumors remained rumors.

The site, meanwhile, grew not only with people, but also with new services, both successful and outright failures. It was clear to everyone in the company that they were sitting on a lot of money, but coming up with elegant ways to get it from users was not such an easy task. The site tested various methods of introducing contextual advertising that was as gentle as possible. In this regard, there were also scandals, in particular related to data privacy (which turned out to be a big question) and the inability to permanently delete your account. In general, everything is natural - the larger the community, the greater the unrest.

2007 was definitely a year of change for Facebook. To begin with, Microsoft acquired a 1.6% stake in the company for $240 million. It is easy to calculate that in Microsoft's understanding, the total value of Facebook is equal to 15 billion pieces of paper with portraits of dead presidents. Where are Yahoo and Google with their modest amounts?

In 2009, Facebook officially opened the platform codes to everyone, so everyone had the opportunity to create new applications for the site, be it toys, horoscopes, calendars, or something else entirely. By the way, now more than 140 new applications are added to the site every day.

Madness has gripped the world. Even the casual dating model has changed. The phrase “Can you give me your phone number?” was replaced by a request for a link to a Facebook profile. And this is really convenient: instead of taking a long time to check by trial and error whether a person is right for you or not, you can simply look at his personal page. The popularity of Facebook has ensured the convenience of self-organization by interest groups that already exist offline or newly created.

A vengeful thief or a victim of envious people?

The launch of the project was accompanied by a scandal. Six days after the site opened, senior students, brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra, accuse Zuckerberg of stealing their idea. They claim that they hired Zuckerberg in 2003 to complete the creation of the social network HarvardConnection.com. According to them, Zuckerberg did not transfer the results of his work to them, but he used the work he received from them to create Facebook.

That same year, the Winklevosses and Narendra launched their network, renamed ConnectU. And they continue to attack Zuckerberg, complaining about him to the Harvard administration and the Harvard Crimson newspaper. At first, Zuckerberg convinces journalists not to publish the investigation: he shows what he allegedly did for HarvardConnection.com and explains that these developments have nothing to do with Facebook. But very inopportunely, another Harvard student, John Thomson, begins to say in personal conversations that Zuckerberg stole one of his ideas for Facebook. The newspaper decides to publish the article, which greatly offends Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg takes revenge on the Harvard Crimson. According to the Silicon Alley Insider resource, in 2004 he hacked into the mailboxes of two journalists of the publication using the newly launched Facebook. It finds all users who indicate their affiliation with the newspaper and looks at the logs (i.e. history) of the incorrect passwords they entered into Facebook. Zuckerberg's calculation was justified: two newspaper employees absent-mindedly tried to log into Facebook with the password for their email. Silicon Alley Insider claims that Zuckerberg was lucky: he read with interest comments in their correspondence about the editorial team’s communication with him and HarvardConnection.com.

The Winklevoss brothers and Narendra sue, but the court rejects their claim. They prove persistent and file another lawsuit. The second court conducts an examination of the source codes to understand whether they were actually stolen. But the truth is still not clear. The results of the examination were not made public: in 2009, Zuckerberg agreed to pay $45 million ($20 million in cash and the rest in Facebook shares) to ConnectU as part of a pre-trial settlement. After this, the case was closed. By that time, ConnectU had fewer than 100,000 users, while Facebook boasted 150 million.

But the Winklevoss brothers did not rest on this; they filed a petition with the US Federal Court of Appeal, but they were denied a review of the case. According to their lawyer, Jerome Faulk, the appeals court denied the brothers a review of the case, based only on a settlement agreement between the parties, which states that the parties to the trial, once signed, have no right to reopen the trial. According to the lawyer, the decision was illegal, since Mark Zuckerberg provided false data about the value of the company during the proceedings in 2008.

On May 17, 2011, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss filed a lawsuit against the owner of the social network Facebook Mark and Zuckerberg in Supreme Court USA. This is the brothers' last attempt to reconsider the case.

Lifestyle of Mark Zuckerberg

Having received the status of a billionaire, Zuckerberg himself did not change his lifestyle. As usual as a student, he rents a house (apartment) with a minimum of amenities in Palo Alto, where there is not even a bed, and sleeps on a mattress on the floor. The way to work overcomes on foot or by bicycle. The favorite look is worn-out trousers, a T-shirt and sandals on bare feet. True, he admits that for trips to such “adult” events as the forum in Davos, he has a decent suit in stock. His girlfriend's name is Priscilla Chen and she is of Chinese descent. Our hero, still in his first year at Harvard, confessed in an online diary that he liked Asian girls.

The spirit of the young founding father is reflected at Facebook's headquarters. The three buildings look decent and modern, but have not lost the image of a student dormitory. Casually dressed employees, whose number has already exceeded 400 people, show up at work late after lunch, but also stay until the roosters. To ensure that everyday life does not interfere with creativity, meals, clothes washing and other services are provided right in the office, and free of charge.

It is impossible not to note Mark’s sensible view of his “empire”. He understands that technological breakthroughs are one thing, but business strategy is something else, and he is not as knowledgeable about these things. The news that Facebook has appointed veteran Google manager Sheryl Sandberg to run Facebook's day-to-day operations has been welcomed by the business community.

Aspirations of means mass media learning as much as possible about Mark Zuckerberg is rarely successful. This is because the author of such a successful project is an extremely secretive, inaccessible person who does not want to demonstrate himself. If there are very short interviews, then in them the young and talented figure is mostly lost, stammers, stammers, in general, feels very awkward in front of the camera (this happened on the Oprah Winfrey show). However, most analysts are convinced that this state of affairs is a temporary phenomenon and very soon Mark will definitely eclipse even the most advanced speakers of our time.

Secrets of Mark Zuckerberg's success

Unlike other famous billionaires, Mark Zuckerberg is in no hurry to reveal his secrets, therefore, many experts are independently trying to analyze the personality of the Facebook founder in order to understand how a 26-year-old young man managed to do something that 99 percent of people today cannot do?

The first thing to note is that Mark has always understood the difference between technological breakthrough and creative strategy. And if he is not strong in the latter, then he is happy to entrust this area of ​​work to a good manager. Although in the field of management, Mark cannot be considered so mediocre, because in the most miraculous way the best of the best, specialists who have been hunted by large companies for years, end up on his team. Many argue that Zuckerberg has a rare ability to negotiate correctly.

Mark Zuckerberg is extremely demanding. He loves to argue, rarely praises his employees and strives to do everything to ensure that they work with their souls, completely devoting themselves to the task. However, there are simply no indifferent people in Mark’s team.

Many psychologists say that Mark’s modesty and unpretentiousness in terms of comfort contribute in every possible way to the fact that he can fully concentrate on his main mission - the development of the Facebook network. In general, the simplicity and even some carelessness in Mark’s business negotiations are legendary. So one day he refused a meeting with a Microsoft representative, which was scheduled for 8.00. " I'm still sleeping at this time", said Mark. When Zuckerberg was invited to discuss cooperation with Yahoo, he said that a girl was coming to see him that day. No talk about that we're talking about the billion dollar deal had no effect on Mark. There is no need to rush - Zuckerberg learned this principle back in school years after the first offer from Microsoft. Today Mark is true to himself, and the money still flows into his hands. The youngest billionaire today has become the idol of millions of people who want to reach the same unprecedented heights. But only a few can do this...

What can we say today about Mark as a businessman and prominent IT figure? Perhaps nothing specific. Even experts disagree - some call Facebook the new Google, and Zuckerberg a replacement for Page and Sergey Brin, others speak out very cautiously, especially after trials and accusations of theft of ideas. It is still not entirely clear what in this whole story was a competent calculation, and what was luck and a wave caught by chance. The most common characteristic of Mark, heard from the mouths of most experts, critics and powerful of the world This boils down to one phrase: “He is still so young.” And it’s hard to disagree with this: Mark’s age really makes it difficult to consider who he is - a young genius or just a very lucky guy who is favored by circumstances.

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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 involved with technological progress already while studying in elementary school and 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 Brand 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 managed to put them into practice in the right way.

For further development project, which was not long in coming, Zuckerberg needed additional cash 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 human history.

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

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

The story of Mark Zuckerberg's life and success is incredibly similar to the plot of a movie, which has everything necessary for a good movie: an eccentric genius, lies, betrayal, intrigue, unexpected turns of events and an unpredictable outcome. But it’s probably better to start from the very beginning.

Beginning of life

Mark was born on May 14, 1984 in New York into an intelligent and financially secure Jewish family, becoming the second of four children and the only son. The future genius's passion for programming began to manifest itself almost from primary school. When Mark got his first computer, and this happened in the sixth grade, his interest in lines of code acquired the character of fanaticism, without exaggerating the word.

In the ninth grade, under a light hand rising star In the information age, a digital version of the then popular board game “Risk” was released, and a couple of years later, Mark and a friend created an add-on for the Winamp audio player, which analyzed the user’s musical preferences and created track lists that were suitable for the listener at a given time .

It should be noted that with the growth of programming skills, the future creator of Facebook also developed an eccentricity. So, for example, after publishing the same add-on for Winamp on the Internet, Microsoft asked to sell the project for two million US dollars, but Mark refused, arguing his answer with the phrase “inspiration is not for sale.”

University life

It is also interesting that for all his passion, Zuckerberg managed to excel in other disciplines, including mathematics, fencing, history and psychology. Such a capable young man easily entered the most prestigious university in the States - Harvard; moreover, the financial condition of his family clearly contributed to this.

It is not surprising that Mark’s university performance left much to be desired, since the aspiring genius devoted all his time to programming, and, oddly enough, his studies also required long hours.

However, Zuckerberg’s unusual mentality has helped him out more than once when preparing for exams. So, for example, two days before the exam, where it was necessary to talk about half a thousand paintings on the history of art, Mark created a website, on each page of which there was a separate painting, and asked his classmates to express their opinions about each one. In general, literally in two hours the material for submission was prepared, and Mark himself received the highest grade.

Programming: interest, passion, mania...

It cannot be said that Mark was an exemplary student: this man did not exactly lead correct image life and was too passionate about programming. Mark could suddenly leave a lecture or any other event and run across campus to the computer to bring his next idea to life.

One day, Mark broke up with his girlfriend, which he immediately, as was his habit, wrote about on a blog on MySpace. After a few bottles of beer, Zuckerberg decided to create a website that would allow him to rate girls based on their photographs. Using vulnerabilities in the protection of the university's servers, Mark downloaded photographs of all the students, and then displayed them on the website page in pairs and in random order, giving users the opportunity to vote. Based on the voting results, the most attractive girl at the university.

Such cynicism immediately had an effect: the university network traffic increased several dozen times, reaching a record high. In addition, Mark’s actions won the attention of the most different people, including the Winklevoss brothers.

The Facebook. Start

The Winklevoss brothers represented the most elite student club in all of America. And they couldn't ignore Zuckerberg's impressive capabilities. As a result, Mark was invited to participate in the development of the university social network “Harvard-connection”. However, the young genius was not very interested in such an offer and he began working on the creation of The Facebook. Financial assistance he was assisted by fellow student Eduardo Saverin, whose name was on the list of authors of the project for some time.

The first global social network developed every day and approached the level that anyone can see in their browser. At first, Facebook only worked at universities, then it began to take over one educational institution after another. City by city, country by country, continent by continent. Soon, Mark hired several programmers to help him from among the university students.

Eduardo Saverin insisted that Facebook should make money through advertising. Mark did not agree with him and in every possible way prevented negotiations with potential investors. But at one fine moment, Zuckerberg was lucky enough to meet Sean Parker, the notorious developer of a music service who turned the music industry upside down and incurred the wrath of all recording studios and copyright holders.

Sean Parker. A new round of Facebook history

Sean Parker made a strong impression on Mark. He managed to persuade Zuckerberg to move to California and begin to attract large investors, which, by the way, led to the fact that Eduardo Saverin began to gradually move away from the project, and after some time his name was crossed out from the list of authors.

The Facebook project lost the “The” prefix, because, according to Sean, “it’s cooler,” and began to bring in a lot of money. However, Mark was not interested in finances; the project itself was important to him.

What followed was a series of lawsuits and proceedings. Mark was sued by the unsuccessful co-authors of “Harvard-connection” and Eduardo Saverin himself, who, in his opinion, was unreasonably excluded from the project.

Zuckerberg and Facebook today

Today, Facebook is the most popular social network in the world. This project generates billions of dollars in profits through promotions and advertising. Mark himself is one of the richest people on the planet:

1. At the beginning of 2010, the billionaire's fortune was estimated at only $6.9 billion. By the end of the year, this figure had increased by almost two and a half times;


2. In the first half of 2013, Mark entered the top ten richest people, with almost 14 billion US dollars at his disposal;


3. In October 2014, Zuckerberg purchased land plots on the Kauai coast for a hundred million dollars, where the construction of a 280-hectare estate was planned;


4. At the end of 2014, Mark took fourteenth place according to Forbes in the ranking of billionaires with a fortune of about 33.6 billion US dollars.

According to Mark, at the end of this year, 99% of Facebook shares will be donated to charity, which is almost $45 billion. The billionaire himself does not plan to complete his work on Facebook, since, as he claims, not everything planned has been done yet.

10 Best Mark Zuckerberg Quotes

1. “In a world that is changing very quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not to take risks.”
— From an interview given in October 2011 at the Y Combinator Startup School in Palo Alto, California.

2. “The question is not what we want to know about people, the question is what people themselves want to tell about themselves.”
— From an interview with Charlie Rose in November 2011.

3. “I actually wrote code for Facebook in my dorm and ran it from my room. For $85 a month, I rented a server and covered my expenses through advertising on the site. We are still making money from this."
— In the same interview with Charlie Rose, Zuckerberg talked about the humble beginnings of his career.

4. “A squirrel dying in your yard may be more important right now than people dying in Africa.”
— From an appeal to colleagues on Facebook regarding the relevance of certain events, according to the message The New York Times.

5. “Move fast, destroy everything. If you don't destroy everything, you're not fast enough."
— In an interview with Business Insider's Henry Blodgett, Zuck (Zuckerberg's nickname) talked about innovation and management. However, he recently announced that Facebook would change its much-talked-about motto.

6. “It sounds strange, of course, but I’d rather be among people who underestimate us. It motivates them to go out and do something big, something that will excite them, that will amaze them.”
— At the Disrupt SF conference organized by TechCrunch in September 2012, the entrepreneur shared his views on the criticism and doubts expressed towards Facebook.

7. “A person can be a genius or have all the necessary skills, but if he doesn’t believe in himself, he won’t give it his all.”
— From a series of talks at Stanford University in October 2005 on hiring the right employees.

8. “People don’t care what they say about you in the movies—or even what you say. They're interested in what you're doing."
— From an interview with Diane Sawyer, ABC, July 2010.

9. “When you're in Silicon Valley, you feel like this is where you should work. But this is not entirely true. If I were starting my career now, I would work in Boston. Silicon Valley, in my opinion, is focused on the short term, and I don't like that."
— From an interview given in October 2011 at the Y Combinator Startup School in Palo Alto, California.

10. “Almost every day I ask myself: Am I doing the most important thing possible? If I understand that I am working on the most significant problem that I can help solve, I get satisfaction from the time spent.”
— From the biography “Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook Creator” by Marcia Amidon Lusted.

Talented people are talented in everything. Fencing, programming, knowledge of languages, psychology are far from full list hidden capabilities of a young, purposeful guy, Mark Zuckerberg. He managed to turn favorite activity into a profitable business, creating a world-famous social network. Today, Facebook is one of the five most visited sites, and its founder became the youngest billionaire on the planet. What brought an ordinary guy to success?

Mark Zuckerberg: biography, first steps

The future programmer was born into a family of doctors in the town of White Plains (USA). Zuckerberg's father found himself in dentistry, and his mother in psychiatry. Mark Elliott has 3 sisters - the eldest Randi and the younger Donna and Ariel.

Mark's acquaintance with information technology occurred quite early, at the age of 10. The guy received a gift from his father, Edward Zuckerberg, - the first PC. The surprise was an investment in his son's future education. Computers and digital radiography were just beginning to be used in the workplace, and the elder Zuckerberg actively took advantage of this advantage. Edward became the first mentor in Mark's life, teaching him the Basic programming language. The child was so carried away by the new activity that within a couple of years he was writing the ZuckNet program to improve the work of his father’s dental clinic. The program allowed Edward, who was in the office, to communicate with his family and assistants.

IN free time talented child created computer games and received additional knowledge from a private tutor.

Zuckerberg's versatility

Programming wasn't Mark's only area of ​​expertise. While studying at Phillips Exeter Academy, the smart guy was interested in literature, mathematics, languages ​​and fencing. In his university resume, Mark indicated knowledge of languages ​​such as French, Latin, Ancient Greek and Hebrew. Often in literature classes, Zuckerberg quoted passages from original works.

The future billionaire's sporting achievements were also outstanding. His passion for fencing led to the dominant position of captain in the school team.

First successes in programming

Despite being successful in many fields, Mark's heart and soul belonged to programming. While studying at the academy, Zuckerberg wrote the Synapse program with his classmate Adam D'Angelo. The invention was a music player capable of analyzing the tastes of the owner and, according to the information received, creating playlists. This program was created for personal use, but the creators shared it with the community on a special website. The creation was noticed by two well-known companies, Microsoft and AOL, and Zuckerberg received an offer to sell the product and then work together. However, the guy decided to refuse the world IT giants, justifying his decision with the words that “inspiration is not for sale.”

Instead of concluding an agreement with world leaders, Zuckerberg entered the prestigious Harvard University to major in Psychology.

University studies

At Harvard, Mark diligently studied psychology, not forgetting about improving his programming skills. Zuckerberg was a member of the Jewish student society Alpha Insilon Pi, studied diligently and attended computer courses.

The second year of study was marked by the creation of two computer programs. The first invention, called CourseMatch, helped students decide on course choices based on the experiences of other students. The second creation was called Facemash and lasted only 2 days. The program consisted of choosing the most attractive one out of two students. Thus, a list of the most popular students at the university was formed. The invention had real photographs of students, which was the reason for large quantity complaints and project closure. Zuckerberg admitted to hacking the Harvard database, but explained his behavior as a simple desire to joke.

Soon everyone forgot about the failed joke. However, the incident became decisive for three of his fellow students, who were selecting a team to create a new project, HarvardConnection.com. Mark played an important role in programming the social network. Zuckerberg accepted the offer, but soon left the project due to being busy with another creation.

Birth of Facebook

Work on the site started in January 2004. Sophomore student Mark Zuckerberg registered a domain called thefacebook, and already in early February the project was seen by the world. Initially, it was a social network for communication between Harvard students. Within a day, about a thousand people registered on the site, and a month later, a good half of the students had their own page on the social network.

The site's growth required more people to work on it. Classmates Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskowitz, Andrew McCollum, and Chris Hughes joined Mark. Thanks to efforts and financial investments, within a few months the network became available to Stanford, Columbia and Yale universities. Over time, the list expanded to include Ivy League universities, top educational institutions Canada and USA.

The development of the social network was rapid and successful. In the summer of 2004, Facebook was created, with Sean Parker as its president and Mark Zuckerberg as its CEO. The guy decided to take an example from Bill Gates and quit his studies at Harvard, devoting himself entirely to the project.

A new page in the history of Facebook began in 2005, when the facebook.com domain was acquired. From that moment on, Mark Zuckerberg’s social network not only became a place for students to communicate, but also gave anyone the opportunity to plunge into the electronic world.

Three years later, Mark Zuckerberg was recognized as the youngest billionaire in the world, and his project continued to flourish. Today, the Facebook network has more than 1 billion users.

Below are some interesting facts about Mark:

Meeting your future wife

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 gave an unexpected surprise and announced their wedding.

The billionaire's chosen one has American and Chinese roots. The girl studied at the Faculty of Biology at Harvard, and then at medical college in San Francisco, at the Department of Pediatrics. In 2015, Priscilla began working to open a special school that would incorporate educational and health promotion elements.

Despite their enormous wealth, the couple are not partygoers and social events, preferring board games and walks in nature.

First experience of fatherhood

Mark and Priscilla for a long time dreamed of adding to the family, but the girl had miscarriages. In December 2015, Mark Zuckerberg's first child was born. Maxim's daughter Chan (Max) lit up the social network with her appearance just a few days after birth. The non-superstitious Mark Zuckerberg posted a photo with a child on his personal page Facebook. The happy dad took two months off to enjoy the joy of fatherhood.

Charity

In 2010, the billionaire joined charitable organization The Giving Pledge, which encourages wealthy people to give half of their wealth to those in need.

Mark Zuckerberg with his wife and children (they are still part of the plans of the young married couple) will give 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.

In addition, 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.

Visit Russia

In 2012, Mark Zuckerberg flew to the 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. At the lecture, the billionaire shared with the audience the history of the creation of the famous social network and told his story. In addition, Zuckerberg took part in several Russian programs and was actively involved in international conference created by him. The conference discussed the advantages of the Facebook network, the main one being the huge number of active users.

Mark Zuckerberg's titles

Mark Zuckerberg has already won the following titles:

• The youngest billionaire in the world according to Forbes magazine.
• Time magazine's Person of the Year 2010.
• The most tastelessly dressed billionaire according to GQ magazine.

Mark Zuckerberg, whose photo you see in the article, is a young, successful man. He managed to achieve a lot thanks to his perseverance and hard work. Let's wish him success and prosperity!