Who is Mark Zuckerberg?
May 1984 Birthday
Mark Zuckerberg born in White Plains, New York, is one of the four children and the only son
of Karen and Edward Zuckerberg. His mother is a psychiatrist while his father is a dentist.
He developed an interest in computer programming at an early age.
January 1985 Family
His three sisters are Randi, Donna and Arielle. They grew up in Dobbs Ferry, New York,
in a Reform Jewish household. He is a descendant of immigrants from Germany, Poland, and Austria.
January 1998 First Computer Program
Mark Zuckerberg was really into computers when he was 12 years old.
He built a message network for his father’s dentist office called
Zucknet, which is considered to be a precursor of AOL's Instant Messenger.
August 1999 Early School Days
Zuckerberg was an exemplary student. He attended
Ardsley High School before transferring to Phillips Exeter Academy, in New Hampshire,
in his junior year. During his time there, he got fluent in French, Hebrew, Latin,
and ancient Greek and earned several prizes in science and classical studies.
September 2002 Welcome to Harvard
Mark gets enrolled in Harvard for the class of 2006 pursuing degrees in psychology and computer
science and was a member of Alpha Epsilon Pi and Kirkland House. While he was there,
he created a website called Facemash which allowed students to share and rate photos.
It was shut down by the university, but it inspired him to create Facebook.
February 2004 TheFacebook is created
Mark developed the code for his new website. He launched “TheFacebook” from his college dormitory
with his college roommates. At first, their service was limited only to Harvard but later
Zuckerberg decided to expand it to other schools.
March 2004 First Lawsuit against Facebook
Facebook was sued by ConnectU founders Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss,
and Divya Narendra, alleging that Zuckerberg had used their idea to create a competitive product.
The case was eventually settled in 2008 after Facebook agreed to transfer over 1.2 million
common Facebook shares and pay $20 million in cash.
May 2004 Here I come Silicon Valley!
During his sophomore year, Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard and subsequently
relocated to Silicon Valley to complete his Facebook project. He,
Moskovitz, and some of their friends rented a house in Palo Alto which became their office.
January 2006 Facebook’s Mission
By now, they had already found several investors and moved their base of
operation to an actual office. However, they repeatedly thwarted attempts by major
corporations to purchase their fledgeling company. As Zuckerberg later stated,
“the mission of Facebook is to make the world open; it was never about money.”
February 2007 Mark joins Billionaire Club
At the age of 23, he became the world's youngest
self-made billionaire. The same year, he launched Facebook Platform,
an initiative that encourages third-party developers to create applications for Facebook.
July 2010 Facebook Fledgeling
Zuckerberg announced that the number of active users on the app has reached
500 million. That year, he ranked first on Vanity Fair’s list of the Top 100 "most influential
people of the Information Age”. In October 2012, they reached the one billion-user milestone.
In June 2017, Zuckerberg reported that Facebook has garnered two billion users.
May 2012 Zuckerberg gets married
Mark marries Priscilla Chan, whom he met at a Harvard Fraternity party in 2003, in his
backyard. They both knew each other since college and had two girls together: Maxima and August.
August 2013 Project Internet.org
Facebook with several other companies launched a project called Internet.org
to usher in better and more affordable access to selected internet services
in under-developed and developing countries.
February 2014 Facebook Expanding Horizons
By now, Facebook acquired the photo and video sharing social media platform,
Instagram, in 2012. Two years later, the company acquired the mobile messaging app, WhatsApp.
December 2015 Indulging in Philanthropy
Zuckerberg and Chan set up Chan Zuckerberg Initiative,
a limited liability company, with the aim to “advance human potential and promote equality
in areas such as health, education, scientific research and energy”.
January 2016 Atheist to Believer
Raised Jewish, Zuckerberg once identified as an atheist but has since revised his views. He said:
"I was raised Jewish and then I went through a period where I questioned things,
but now I believe religion is very important."
June 2016 Pledge to Humanity
Business Insider named Zuckerberg one of the "Top 10 Business Visionaries
Creating Value for the World" along with Elon Musk and Sal Khan, due to the fact that he and
his wife "pledged to give away 99% of their wealth — which is estimated at $55.0 billion.
May 2017 Graduating Harvard
Several years after dropping out of Harvard, Zuckerberg received an honorary degree from the
college at its 366th commencement ceremony. There he addressed, “You might think,
'I don't know how to build a dam,' Let me tell you something,
no one knows when to begin. You just have to get started.”
January 2019 Privacy-focused Future
Zuckerberg laid plans to integrate an end-to-end encrypted system for three
major social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp for consumers privacy.
January 2020 Looking at Future
Zuckerberg currently serves as Facebook’s chairman, CEO,
and is the 5th richest person in the world with a wealth exceeding $100 billion. But
he is now more focused towards technological innovations and helping the world. He says:
‘The road ahead looks more like helping small businesses and philanthropic
efforts for the next generation.’