Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg.
Mark Zuckerberg | |
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Zuckerberg attended Harvard University, where he launched Facebook in February 2004 with his roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes. Originally launched to select college campuses, the site expanded rapidly and eventually beyond colleges, reaching one billion users in 2012. Zuckerberg took the company public in May 2012 with majority shares. In 2007, at age 23, he became the world's youngest self-made billionaire. He has used his funds to organize multiple philanthropic endeavors, including the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
Zuckerberg has been listed as one of the most influential people in the world on four occasions in 2008, 2011, 2016 and 2019 respectively and nominated as a finalist in 2009, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2022. He was named the Person of the Year by Time magazine in 2010, the same year when Facebook eclipsed more than half a billion users.[3][4][5] In December 2016, Zuckerberg was ranked tenth on Forbes list of The World's Most Powerful People.[6] In the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans in 2022, he was ranked 11th with a wealth of $57.7 billion, down from his status as the third richest American in 2021 with a net worth of $134.5 billion. As of March 2023, Zuckerberg's net worth was $73 billion according to the Forbes Real Time Billionaires making him the 15th richest person in the world.[7] A film depicting Zuckerberg's early career, legal troubles and initial success with the site, The Social Network, was released in 2010 and won multiple Academy Awards.
Zuckerberg's prominence and fast rise in the technology industry has prompted political and legal attention. The founding of Facebook involved Zuckerberg in multiple lawsuits regarding the creation and ownership of the website as well as issues of user privacy. In 2013, he co-founded the pro-immigration lobbying group FWD.us. On April 10 and 11, 2018, Zuckerberg testified before the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation regarding the usage of personal data by Facebook in relation to the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data breach.
In January 2004, Zuckerberg began writing code for a new website. On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launched "The facebook", originally located at thefacebook.com, in partnership with his roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes.[26][27][28] An earlier inspiration for Facebook may have come from Phillips Exeter Academy, the prep school from which Zuckerberg graduated in 2002. It published its own student directory, "The Photo Address Book", which students referred to as "The Facebook". Such photo directories were an important part of the student social experience at many private schools. With them, students were able to list attributes such as their class years, their friends, and their telephone numbers.[27]