The History of Facebook and How It Was Invented
He studied computer science at Harvard University before moving to Palo Alto, California in 2004. A film depicting Zuckerberg’s early career, legal troubles and initial success with Facebook, The Social Network, was released in 2010 and won multiple Academy Awards. His prominence and fast rise in the technology industry has prompted political and legal attention. Mark is currently president and chief executive officer of Facebook and works at the company’s office in Menlo Park, California.
Yet Zuckerberg remained fascinated by computers and continued to work on developing new programs. While still in high school, he created an early version of the music software Pandora, which he called Synapse. In 2003, Zuckerberg, a second-year student at Harvard, wrote the software for a website called Facemash. He put his computer science skills to questionable use by hacking into Harvard’s security network, where he copied the student ID images used by the dormitories and used them to populate his new website.
- From his early beginnings creating ZuckNet to his latest achievements with Meta Platforms, Zuckerberg has been at the forefront of software development and programming innovation.
- The resulting outcry seemed to shake investors’ confidence in Facebook, its shares dropping by 15 percent after the news became public.
- Here are some key facts that are known about his personal life including his marriage, children, and net worth.
- Any gains were wiped out when Facebook shares dropped a staggering 19 percent on July 26, following an earnings report that revealed a failure to meet revenue expectations and slowing user growth.
- The birth of Facebook was portrayed in the 2010 film The Social Network.
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Mark Zuckerberg is the founder, chairman and CEO of Meta, which he originally founded as Facebook in 2004. He is responsible for setting the overall direction and product strategy for the company. For two years, Zuckerberg attended public high school Ardsley and then transferred to the Phillips Exeter Academy, where he excelled in classical studies and science. By his high school graduation, Zuckerberg could read and write French, Hebrew, Latin, and ancient Greek. The Information Architects maintain a master list of the topics included in the corpus of Encyclopædia Britannica, and create and manage the relationships between them. The couple announced they were expecting both of their children on Facebook.
Through Facebook and its many acquisitions, such as Instagram and WhatsApp, Zuckerberg controls the majority of the way consumers consume content and interact with one another. His wealth, however, is tied up in the shares of Meta (formerly Facebook), of which he is the largest shareholder, making him one of the richest men in the world. He earned his wealth as the founder and largest shareholder of Meta (formerly Facebook). In April 2018, Facebook disclosed that the information of 87 million users had been improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica, and not the 50 million as earlier reported.
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Other Harvard students, like Divya Narendra, Cameron Winklevoss, and Tyler Winklevoss, sued Zuckerberg for alleged intellectual property theft from HarvardConnection.com. While Zuckerberg played a pivotal role in the company’s launch, there were many other students at Harvard who played major or minor roles in the company’s startup. The statement went on to say that Zuckerberg and Facebook heard about Cambridge Analytica’s involvement from the media, just like everyone else.
This site was designed to use information from Harvard’s student networks in order to create a dating site for the Harvard elite. Mark Zuckerberg reported that the name change reflects a change in focus for the company. Instead of merely focusing on social media connections, the company will now focus on ushering in the metaverse as a virtual reality where people can communicate and connect in new ways. Mark Zuckerberg is a self-taught computer programmer and co-founder, chair, and chief executive officer of Meta (META), formerly known as Facebook.
Microsoft investment (Series C)
After the initial success of the IPO, the Facebook stock price dropped somewhat in the early days of trading, though Zuckerberg is expected to weather any ups and downs in his company’s market performance. Zuckerberg and his friends Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverin created The Facebook, a site that allowed users to create their own profiles, upload photos, and communicate with other users. The group ran the site out of a dorm room at Harvard University until June 2004.
Facebook IPO and Acquisitions
It wasn’t until college that Zuckerberg finally landed on the idea that would launch his fame. Facebook is routinely listed as the largest social media platform and, in many ways, launched the industry. In October 2021, Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would now be called Meta Platforms. The decision was made to focus more broadly on social technology and virtual reality, rather than just Facebook. The purchase of Oculus VR and other artificial intelligence companies help highlight this transition. Zuckerberg hopes to become a leader in fully immersive experiences in the metaverse.
Originally named Facemash, Zuckerberg founded the social networking site in his Harvard University dorm room in 2004 along with Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, and Eduardo Saverin. In mid-2005, Facebook raised $12.7 million in venture capital and expanded access to hundreds of universities and high schools. One year later, the social network opened to the general public, and Yahoo! offered $1 billion to buy the company—a bid that was swiftly rejected by Zuckerberg. Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (/ˈzʌkərbɜːrɡ/; born May 14, 1984) is an American businessman.
He also invented Facemash, which compared the pictures of two students on campus and allowed users to vote on which one was more attractive. The program became wildly popular, but was later shut down by the school administration after it was deemed inappropriate. Thanks to his status as a billionaire, Zuckerberg is the proud owner of multiple homes, including mansions in California and Hawaii. The family’s Hawaiian house is part of massive holdings on Kauai that add up to an estimated 1,300 acres. Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is an American billionaire best known for co-founding and leading Meta Platforms, known in the past as Facebook. Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard University after his sophomore year to concentrate on his entrepreneurial goals instead of completing his education.
His mother, Karen, worked as a psychiatrist before the birth of the couple’s four children — Mark, Randi, Donna and Arielle. Facemash opened on October 28, 2003—and closed a few days later, after it was shut down by Harvard execs. In the aftermath, Zuckerberg faced serious charges of breach of security, violating copyrights, and violating individual privacy. Though he faced expulsion from Harvard for his actions, all charges against him were eventually dropped.
It was at that time that he built a program called CourseMatch, which helped students choose their classes based on the course selections of other users. While Zuckerberg’s antics and the site’s profits eventually led to him becoming the world’s youngest multi-billionaire, the man who invented Facebook has done his part to spread the wealth around. In 2010, he signed a pledge, along with other wealthy businessmen, to donate at least half of his wealth to charity. Facebook is one of the most popular social media platforms in the world.
Mark is also the co-founder and co-CEO of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) with his wife Priscilla. They founded CZI in 2015 to help solve some of society’s toughest challenges — from eradicating disease and improving education, to addressing the needs of our local communities. Through collaboration, providing resources and building technology, CZI’s mission is to help build a more inclusive, just and healthy future for everyone. In his second year of college at Harvard University, Zuckerberg met medical student Priscilla Chan. In September 2010, Zuckerberg and Chan began living together, and on May 19, 2012, they were married. The couple has two children, Maxima Chan Zuckerberg (born December 1, 2015) and August Chan Zuckerberg (born August 28, 2017).
It was an astounding success, but it bogged down the network at Harvard, people’s pictures were being used without their permission, and it was offensive to people, particularly women’s groups, on campus. Zuckerberg ended the project and apologized to the women’s groups, saying he thought of it as a computer experiment. “We are committed to doing our small part to help create this world for all children,” the couple wrote in the open letter that was posted on Zuckerberg’s Facebook page. “We will give 99% of our Facebook shares — currently about $45 billion — during our lives to join many others in improving this world for the next generation.” Any gains were wiped out when Facebook shares dropped a staggering 19 percent on July 26, following an earnings report that revealed a failure who is the father of facebook to meet revenue expectations and slowing user growth. Nearly $16 billion of Zuckerberg’s personal fortune was erased in one day.