Mark Zuckerberg… This name is known to almost every person who has access to the Internet. Who is he? A programmer, businessman, philanthropist, family man and just a good guy who, at his relatively young age, has achieved what many have been achieving for decades. This article will tell the biography of Mark Zuckerberg, the success story of his offspring called Facebook, as well as interesting facts from his personal life.
Early years
The future billionaire was born on May 14, 1984 in the American city of White Plains, in a family of doctors. In his family, Mark was far from the only child. He also has three sisters: Randy, Donna and Ariel.
At the age of 10, young Mark Zuckerberg realized that he wanted to devote his life to programming. It was at this age that his parents bought him his first computer, at which he subsequently spent days on end. At first he wrote quiteprimitive programs, but over time his skills began to improve.
First successes
In high school, Zuckerberg created his own strategy game called "Risk", and even then Microsoft representatives drew attention to him, offering him a job. Due to the fact that Mark was an underage boy who had not yet graduated from high school, the deal never went through.
The next project of the future co-creator of Facebook was the Synapse program, which he wrote with his friend. This software worked on the basis of the Winamp audio player. It analyzed the musical tastes of listeners and showed a selection of similar songs.
Studying at Harvard
Someone may be surprised, but programming was far from Mark's only hobby. At the time of entering a higher educational institution, he was engaged in fencing, studied ancient languages, and also devoted a lot of time to mathematics. Oddly enough, but at Harvard, he decided to enter the Faculty of Psychology. It was at this university that Zuckerberg began his path to success.
Creating Facebook
While studying at Harvard, Mark Zuckerberg had the idea to create a website where students could communicate online. It is clear that it is very problematic to create such a large-scale project alone, so he enlisted the support of his comrades Dustin Moskvits, Andrew McCollum and Chris Hughes. Soon they were joined by Eduardo Saverin, who sponsored this project. With the last one after a whiletime there was a conflict that was resolved only in the courtroom.
The main reason for the popularity of Facebook was its convenience. Students could organize themselves into groups and areas that already existed in their schools. They were able to add their photos and any personal information - from favorite hobbies to love preferences. Mark Zuckerberg's company notes two main differences between Facebook and other popular social networks. Firstly, real people here are looking for exactly the same people. Secondly, on this site you can choose which groups of users your data can be accessed - only to the guys from the university or to absolutely all site visitors, only to people from your city or, for example, to all fans of Frank Sinatra, etc.
The social network needed a good promotion, which was taken up by a large entrepreneur Peter Thiel. As a result, such promotion led to the incredible popularity of Facebook. Already in 2006, this site entered the TOP of the most popular US sites.
So who is the real author?
A new social network, which was originally created for Harvard students, has gained great popularity outside of this educational institution. But not everything was as smooth as it might seem at first glance. Two brothers who studied with Mark at the same faculty accused him of stealing the idea. This is partly true, since earlier they invited him as a programmer to create a similar site. They dragged Zuckerberg through the courtsbut not a single case was won. As a result, they were paid compensation in the amount of $45 million.
Mark Zuckerberg's wife
Besides the success story of Facebook, many people are interested in the family life of the creator of this site. We could not ignore this, and therefore we present to your attention a few facts about Priscilla Chan, the wife of Mark Zuckerberg.
- Priscilla achieves her goals on her own. At Quincy High School's graduation in 2003, it was she who was assigned to deliver the farewell speech. In America, only those students who performed well during the educational process are awarded such an honor. After graduating from high school, she entered Harward in the biology department. In the period from 2007 to 2008 she was engaged in teaching activities. After these events, the future wife of Mark entered the medical college at the department of pediatrics, which she successfully graduated shortly before her marriage.
- Someone may be surprised, but Mark Zuckerberg met his wife before he created Facebook and became a famous billionaire. Their first meeting took place at a university party when they were… Standing in line for the toilet.
- Mark and Priscilla don't like pathos and glamour. In their free time, they prefer to walk in the park, play bocce (a game reminiscent of bowling and petanque), and also spend evenings playing board games. In addition, many journalists have repeatedly criticized the Zuckerberg family for their tasteless dressing and lack of style.
- Priscilla is the initiatororgan donation programs on Facebook, and is generally active in charity work with her spouse.
- Before getting married, Mark and Priscilla dated for almost 10 years. When they decided to tie the knot in their lives, they tried to make sure that this news did not get into the media. Moreover, they did not even tell their relatives about it. Priscilla invited them to a party, and the reason for the holiday was the receipt of a scientific degree. Only during the celebration did everyone find out that this couple had arranged a wedding.
Mark Zuckerberg's children
At the time of this writing, Mark and Priscilla are the parents of two daughters - Maxim (or as Max's parents call her) and August. The first was born in 2015, and the second two years later.
Zuckerberg is Rockefeller's grandson?
In 2017, the famous banker David Rockefeller left our world. Almost immediately after this event, the world community was stirred up by an incredible rumor: Mark Zuckerberg is actually the grandson of David Rockefeller, and his real name is Jacob Michael Greenberg!
According to unofficial news sources, the history of the creation of Facebook is an ordinary fiction invented as a distraction. In their opinion, this whole story with a working-class student who, together with friends, created a multi-million dollar social network, was created so that young people would believe that they could succeed from scratch. According to these sources, Mark Zuckerberg is just a pawn in the hands of morepowerful people, and Facebook, a global surveillance system created by the CIA. The same media called Zuckerberg the great-grandson of Maurice Greenberg, a well-known American entrepreneur and owner of the largest insurance companies CEO AIG and VC Starr.
At the moment, these unofficial sources have not provided any evidence that the above information is true. As we mentioned, Mark Zuckerberg was born into a family of ordinary doctors. His father was a dentist and his mother was a psychiatrist.
Social network
In 2010, a feature film about Mark Zuckerberg called "The Social Network" was released. The film was directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin. The synopsis of the picture is as follows:
At the center of the story is a 21-year-old student named Mark. He studies at the prestigious Harvard University and is in a relationship with a girl, Erica Albright. Mark belongs to the type of people who feel good only when surrounded by people like themselves. The strangeness of his character and obsession with studies eventually led to the fact that the girl left him. After these events, the protagonist's neighbor invited him to compare photos of university girls online. Mark, wanting to take revenge on his former lover, approved this idea and successfully implemented it. After this success, students from the prestigious Harvard club pay attention to Mark, who offer him an interesting project. But the main character already has his own idea and it is much more global.
Facebook creator's opinion on The Social Network movie
Despite the fact that Mark Zuckerberg initially stated that he would not watch David Fincher's tape, he nevertheless got acquainted with it. The Facebook creator praised the film for its accuracy in mundane details (like the T-shirts and slippers worn by the protagonist), but criticized it in other ways. First, he noted that a character named Erica Albright never actually existed. Secondly, he did not like the idea that the main character created a social network just because of his ex-girlfriend. According to Zuckerberg, this goes against reality, since he created Facebook only out of interest in what he loves.
Despite claims made by the real Mark, story writer Aaron Sorkin, whose screenplay is an adaptation of Ben Metzrich's novel Random Billionaires: The Making of Facebook, a Story of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal, maintained that the events of the picture were not invented. On top of that, he noted that Erica Albright, played by actress Rooney Mara, is a real woman whose real name has been changed.
One of the producers of "The Social Network" even stated that this picture is nothing more than a metaphor through which director David Fincher showed the ways of communication between people. He also thanked Mark himself for allowing them to use events from his life as the basis for the film.
Interesting facts
We would like to end our article with some interesting facts aboutZuckerberg and his offspring:
Mark Zuckerberg is worth billions of dollars. In 2010, he, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett entered into an agreement according to which each of them must donate at least half of their we alth to charity for the rest of their lives
- Mark wears his gray Facebook T-shirt almost every day. He explains this by saying that he is very busy and does not have time to get dressed for a long time.
- If you enter @ [4: 0] in the comment box on Facebook and then press the enter button, Mark's name will be displayed.
- In May 2017, at the Harvard University graduation ceremony, the founder of Facebook received a Juris Doctor degree and delivered a commencement speech.
- Mark Zuckerberg suffers from color blindness, which is why he cannot distinguish between green and red. From birth, he is the best at distinguishing blue colors, and therefore there is nothing surprising in the fact that this particular color was chosen as the main color for Facebook's design.
- At the moment, Facebook is considered the most popular social network in the world. It now has almost 1.5 billion registered users!
Your attention was given a biography of Mark Zuckerberg, a photo of this millionaire, facts from his personal life, as well as the story of his incredible success. We hope that this article was interesting for you and you learned a lot of new things!
