Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg | |
|---|---|
 Mark Zuckerberg in Paris in 2008 | |
| Born | Mark Elliot Zuckerberg May 14, 1984 |
| Occupation(s) | Co-founder, CEO & President of Facebook |
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (born May 14, 1984) is an American entrepreneur best known for co-founding the popular social networking site Facebook. Zuckerberg co-founded Facebook with fellow classmates Dustin Moskovitz, Eduardo Saverin, and Chris Hughes while attending Harvard. Zuckerberg serves as Facebook's CEO.[3] He has been the subject of controversy surrounding the origins of his business.[4]
Time magazine added Zuckerberg as one of The World's Most Influential People of 2008. He fell under the Scientists & Thinkers category for his web phenomenon, Facebook, and ranked 52 out of 101 people[5] As of January 2010 Zuckerberg is the youngest self-made businessman worth more than a billion dollars.[6]
Early life
Zuckerberg was born in White Plains, New York and raised in Dobbs Ferry, New York. He started programming when he was in middle school. Early on, Zuckerberg enjoyed developing computer programs, especially communication tools and games. Before attending Phillips Exeter Academy, Mark went to school at Ardsley High School. While attending Phillips Exeter Academy, he built a program to help the workers in his father's office communicate; he built a version of the game Risk and a music player named Synapse that used artificial intelligence to learn the user's listening habits. Microsoft and AOL tried to purchase Synapse and recruit Zuckerberg, but he decided to attend Harvard University instead, where he joined Alpha Epsilon Pi, a Jewish fraternity.[7]
Founding
Zuckerberg launched Facebook from his Harvard dorm room on February 4, 2004. The idea for Facebook came from his days at Phillips Exeter Academy which, like most colleges and prep schools, had a long-standing tradition of publishing an annual student directory with headshot photos of all students, faculty and staff known as the "Facebook". Once at college, Zuckerberg's Facebook started off as just a "Harvard-thing", until Zuckerberg then decided to spread Facebook to other schools and enlisted the help of roommate Dustin Moskovitz. They first spread it to Stanford, Dartmouth, Columbia, Cornell and Yale, and then to other schools with social contacts with Harvard.[8][9][10]
Moving to California
Zuckerberg moved to Palo Alto, California, with Moskovitz and some friends. They leased a small house which served as their first office. Over the summer, Zuckerberg met Peter Thiel who invested in the company. They got their first office during the summer of 2004. According to Zuckerberg, the group planned to return to Harvard in the fall but eventually decided to remain in California. To date, he has not returned as a student to college.
News Feed
On September 5, 2006, Facebook launched News Feed, a product to show what your friends were doing on the site. Zuckerberg was criticized as some[weasel words] saw News Feed as unnecessary and a tool for cyberstalking.
Facebook Platform
On May 24, 2007, Zuckerberg announced a Facebook Platform, a development platform for programmers to create social applications within Facebook. This announcement sparked a great deal of interest in the developer community. Within weeks, many applications had been built and some already had millions of users. Today, there are more than 800,000 developers around the world building applications for Facebook Platform.
On July 23, 2008, Zuckerberg announced Facebook Connect, a version of Facebook Platform for users.
Facebook Beacon
On November 6, 2007, Zuckerberg announced a new social advertising system at an event in Los Angeles. A part of the new program, called Beacon, enabled people to share information with their Facebook friends based on their browsing activities on other sites. An eBay seller, for instance, could let friends know automatically what they have for sale via the Facebook news feed as they list items.
The program came under heavy privacy concerns from both privacy groups and individual users. Zuckerberg and Facebook failed to respond to the concerns quickly, and on December 5, 2007, Zuckerberg ultimately wrote a blog post on Facebook[11] taking responsibility for issues with Beacon and offering an easier way for users to opt out of the service.
ConnectU Controversy
Harvard students Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra accused Mark of fraudulently letting them believe he would help them build a social network called HarvardConnection.com (later called ConnectU). [12] They filed a lawsuit in 2004 but was dismissed without prejudice on March 28, 2007. It was refiled soon thereafter in U.S. District Court in Boston, and a preliminary hearing was scheduled for July 25, 2007.[13] At the hearing the judge told ConnectU parts of their complaint were not sufficiently pled and gave them the ability to refile an amended complaint. On June 25, 2008, the case was settled and Facebook agreed to pay a $65 million settlement.[14]
As part of the lawsuit, in November 2007, confidential court documents were posted on the website of Harvard alumni magazine 02138. They included Zuckerberg's social security number, his parents' home address and his girlfriend's address. Facebook filed to get the documents taken down, but the judge ruled in favor of 02138.[4]
Microsoft investment in Facebook
On October 24, 2007, Facebook Inc. sold a 1.6% stake to Microsoft Corp. for $240 million, rejecting a competing offer from online search leader Google Inc. This would indicate that Facebook had a market value of $15 billion at the time of the sale. A software update for Microsoft's Xbox 360 games console has been released which added support for Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm[15]
Facebook in 2009
As of December 2, 2009 Facebook has claimed that it has attained over 350 million users.
Movie
There is a movie based on Mark Zuckerberg and the surrounding creators of Facebook, called The Social Network. It is currently set to release in 2010, and stars Jesse Eisenberg and Justin Timberlake.
Bibliography
- Yogesh Chabria, Happionaire's Csh The Crash. CNBC - Network18. ISBN 9788190647953 - 2009
References
- ^ "158 Mark Zuckerberg - The Forbes 400 Richest Americans 2009 - Forbes.com;". Forbes. 2009-09-30. Retrieved 2009-10-03.
- ^ Vara, Vauhini (2007-11-28). "Too Much Information? - WSJ.com". Online.wsj.com. Retrieved 2009-08-21.
- ^ Reagan, Gillian (2009-03-10). Thumbs Up! There's a Lot to Like about 'Like' (HTML). The New York Observer. The New York Observer, LLC. Retrieved on 2009-03-11
- ^ a b news.com article about 02138
- ^ Time Magazine 100 Most Influential People
- ^ Forbes Asia Asia's Youngest Self-Made Billionaire
- ^ "Hacker. Dropout. CEO".
- ^ http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:zzmTgSIk5tYJ:daily.stanford.edu/article/2004/3/10/thefacebookcomsDarkerSide+site:daily.stanford.edu+thefacebook.com&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=ca&client=firefox-a
- ^ "Online network created by Harvard students flourishes". Tufts Daily. Retrieved 2009-08-21.
- ^ "Thefacebook.com opens to Duke students - News". Media.www.dukechronicle.com. Retrieved 2009-08-21.
- ^ The Facebook Blog | Facebook
- ^ Nicholas Carlson. "In 2004, Mark Zuckerberg Broke Into A Facebook User's Private Email Account". Silicon Alley Insider. Retrieved 2010-03-05.
- ^ PC World - Facebook Tries to Fend Off Copyright-Infringement Claim
- ^ Logged in as click here to log out. "Facebook paid up to $65m to founder Mark Zuckerberg's ex-classmates | Technology | guardian.co.uk". Guardian. Retrieved 2009-08-21.
- ^ Microsoft invests $240 million in Facebook - MSNBC.com
External links
- Facebook employees
- American businesspeople
- American atheists
- American computer programmers
- American Internet personalities
- Businesspeople in information technology
- Child businesspeople
- Phillips Exeter Academy alumni
- Harvard University people
- 1984 births
- Living people
- People from Westchester County, New York
- American Jews
- Jewish atheists