Mark Zuckerberg: biography of the founder of Facebook. How Mark Zuckerberg taught us to be friends in virtual reality Zuckerberg became a billionaire

Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg with their daughters

Congratulations to 33-year-old Mark Zuckerberg and 32-year-old Priscilla Chan on the completion of the family - the couple had a second daughter. The founder of Facebook shared the good news on the social network today and published the first photo of the baby, whom he called Augusta together with his wife:

Dear Augusta, welcome to this world! Your mom and I are looking forward to what you will become,” Mark wrote on his Facebook page.

Mark Zuckerberg with eldest daughter Max and wife Priscilla Chan

The American programmer and billionaire publicly greeted his second daughter and shared his optimism with which he looks to the future.

Childhood is magical. You can only be a child once, so don't worry about the future. You have us, so we will do our best to make the world a better place for you and all the children of your generation,” Zuckerberg addressed his second daughter in a letter.

He and his wife Priscilla Chan first became parents on December 2, 2015, when their daughter Maxima was born. In the picture posted by her father, she sits next to her newborn sister. About Priscilla Mark's pregnancy

Name: Mark Zuckerberg (Mark Elliot Zuckerberg)

Age: 35 years

Place of Birth: White Plains, USA

Height: 166 cm

Weight: 84 kg

Activity: American programmer, founder of the social network "Facebook"

Family status: married to Priscilla Chan

Mark Zuckerber - Biography

Mark Zuckerberg is one of the richest and most famous young businessmen in the world. What is the secret successful biography famous young genius?

Mark Zuckerberg was born in suburban New York. His parents are doctors. The father works in the field of dentistry and now, the mother used to practice psychiatry, but this moment does not practice medicine. Zuckerberg himself is second in seniority, the programmer has three sisters - Randy, Donna and Ariel.

Mark Zuckerberg - childhood school years

Mark started programming in his school years. Shortly after starting his studies, he began to write rather simple programs, but he constantly improved his skills. In high school, Zuckerberg introduced a full-fledged strategy game he called Risk. It was at this moment that representatives of Microsoft and AOL noticed his talent and immediately offered to cooperate with them. Since Mark Zuckerberg had not yet graduated from school, the proposals were rejected by him. In 2012, Zuckerberg decided to continue his biography by entering Harvard University.

Mark Zuckerberg - Harvard University

It was at Harvard University that Mark came up with the idea of ​​creating a network for communication. Initially, his project was created only for students. This is how the Facebook network was born in Zuckerberg's biography. Of course, Mark did not work on the project alone, he was helped by Dustin Moskvitz and Chris Hughes. At that time, the project was in dire need of funding, and the students quickly found a sponsor. It turned out to be Mark's classmate, Eduardo Saverin, with whom a conflict later occurred, which the court had to resolve.

The Facebook site needed a serious promotion, which was taken up by a large businessman Peter Thiel. The result of this promotion was the multimillion-dollar popularity of the site. Already in 2006, the social network entered the top seven popular sites in America.

Monetization of the site began after Zuckerberg graduated from the university. Then the programmer began to earn money on his brainchild. After 3 years, in 2009, Facebook became a joint-stock company, and it was supported by more than 20 large investors. Then Mark became a billionaire. It was a huge success in the biography of Mark Zuckerberg.

Success in 2010 social network was spotted by the Times magazine. Then Zuckerberg appeared on the cover of this magazine, becoming "man of the year." The magazine noted Mark's achievements and did not leave unnoticed the fact that the genius earned about 7 billion in his company. At the moment, Mark Zuckerberg's income is about 20 billion. Now profit growth has begun to slow down, but still, Facebook and its CEO are getting richer.

Mark Zuckerberg's visit to Russia

In 2012, another important event takes place in Zuckerberg's biography - he comes to Russia. His goal was to meet with Dmitry Medvedev. Mark also gave a lecture at Moscow State University, with his participation two programs were filmed for Channel One. At the same time, a conference of developers from all over the world was attended, which was held that year in Russia. The event was called Facebook World Hack.

Mark Zuckerberg - biography of personal life

Mark Zuckerberg and his family are always extremely modest in public. They rarely give interviews, rarely talk about their personal lives and their achievements. Mark usually talks to journalists, and he rarely goes beyond the Facebook discussion.

Mark's wife, Priscilla Chan, became the legal wife of a computer genius only in 2012. They met much earlier, while still in their second year of university. The first meeting happened quite by accident - young people at a party were waiting for their turn in a public restroom. The affair with Priscilla began precisely with this, and it lasted until the official marriage for almost ten years. During this time, the couple learned a lot about each other, they strengthened their relationship every day. The premarital period passed quietly, without scandals, and even now the couple spend a huge amount of time together.

The Zuckerbergs live extremely modestly. First hallmark Many people call a miserable wardrobe. Mark was repeatedly condemned in magazines for bad taste. Journalists and stylists are usually indifferent to his wife. IN Lately it’s quite difficult to see a couple on the streets, spouses rarely go out in public. Sometimes even the paparazzi can't take pictures. But it is known for sure that the family is constantly together, they live quite modestly and monthly donate huge amounts to charitable foundations.

Mark Zuckerberg for sure great person. WITH young years he showed his genius, actively studied programming and mathematics, and later was not afraid to conquer the Internet and presented worldwide famous project Facebook. His biography is rich in events, Mark has a successful personal life. It remains to be hoped that the future of the genius is just as impressive and happy.

Mark Eliot Zuckerberg is a young programmer who managed to make a decent fortune on his hobby. He managed to find a place in the literal sense for everything: career, love and conscious fatherhood.

Zuckerberg is known around the world as a programmer, an entrepreneur who makes money from computer technology, and a well-known philanthropist. At the same time, the billionaire became famous thanks to the social network Facebook created by himself.

An interesting fact is that millions of Facebook users do not know why its interface is colored in Blue colour. The fact is that Mark Zuckerberg simply does not distinguish half of the colors, but the color of the sky is the main one in the palette of a young man.

Height, weight, age. How old is Mark Zuckerberg

The youngest businessman, computer scientist and hacker in the world has always attracted the attention of the public, who sought to find out what the guy's height, weight, age is. How old is Mark Zuckerberg - the question, of course, is quite easy, because this information is in the public domain.

It is worth noting that the founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg was born in 1984, so his age was thirty-three years. At the same time, the sign of the Zodiac - Taurus - gave Mark such character traits as diligence, patience, endurance, calmness, practicality, stability, intelligence.

Eastern horoscope gave Zuckerberg the sign of the sociable, lucky, charming, resourceful, intuitive, talkative Rat.

Mark Zuckerberg's height is one meter and sixty-six centimeters, and the weight of the computer genius stopped at eighty-four kilograms.

Biography and personal life of Mark Zuckerberg

The biography and personal life of Mark Zuckerberg are simply unique, they are incredibly similar to a strange fairy tale. Mark Eliot Zuckerberg was born in the American town of White Plains, located near New York.

Already at the age of ten, the boy not only studied well at school, but also independently figured out such a programming language as Atari BASIC. At the same time, Mark practically did not know how to draw, so he created computer games using graphics provided by friends.

At the age of twelve, the guy created a home social network that allowed members of the Zuckerberg family to communicate. After graduation elementary school he went to the boarding house for future programmers Phillips Exeter Academy. Before leaving it, Mark wrote thesis, which Microsoft decided to buy from the young genius for two million dollars. The employees of the mega-giant offered the guy to become their employee, even before he graduated from high school, but he proudly refused.

Guy got higher education at Harvard, but it was related to psychology. It was with the light hand of Mark that the CourseMatch program appeared at the university, which allows the exchange of knowledge on certain academic disciplines.

By the way, Mark was an excellent hacker, as he repeatedly hacked into databases, including those of his native university. This was done in order to start a project with which one could vote for one of the students, while Facemash was created in order to make Harvard more transparent.

On the basis of the above program, the Facebook project was created in collaboration with Hughes, Moskowitz and Saverin, which was supposed to unite people all over the world. It was created in a week, and gained its popularity in a matter of days, as students from other US campuses joined it.

The guy left his studies and invested money for his studies in the development of a social network, already in 2004 he became the CEO of his own company Facebook. Mark found investors and continued to develop the possibilities of his project.

Since 2015, Zuckerberg has managed to become the richest and most popular businessman in the world, whose age does not exceed forty years.

Mark's personal life was incredibly boring, because he was head over heels in love with programming, which did not leave any time for love or romance with girls. The guy did not like to attend parties and get acquainted with the fairer sex. It just so happened that Priscilla became Zuckerberg's first girlfriend, love and wife.

Family and children of Mark Zuckerberg

The family and children of Mark Zuckerberg are very unusual, they are used to constantly supporting each other. Little Mark Eliot was born into a family of doctors, and they were not just doctors, but a whole medical dynasty. The Zuckerberg family was large, pious, she observed all the old Jewish traditions and raised the kids in strictness.

The guy's pedigree was a complex interweaving of various nationalities, including Poles, Jews, Germans, Austrians. Mark is the second child and the only boy in the family.

Father: Edward Zuckerberg– Until 2012, he had a private dental practice. It was his father who revealed ten-year-old Mark's penchant for computer graphics and programming. He gave the boy the first personal computer, while he himself demonstrated what exactly can be done with it.

Soon, the father and older sister realized how much the little child prodigy overtook them in computer literacy and could no longer compete with him in this area.

Mother: Karen Zuckerberg- Worked as a qualified psychiatrist.

Mark had three more sisters who were his best friends. It was Randy, Ariel and Donna who supported their older brother in all his endeavors and were happy for him.

Mark Zuckerberg's children are his joy and pride. While the programmer has a two-year-old daughter, but recently it was announced on the social network that Priscilla was pregnant again.

Mark claims that the ultrasound showed that another daughter should be born. Zuckerberg said he was ready for the sake of the baby to go to maternity leave. At the same time, he posted his photos and childhood photos of his wife and sisters on Facebook, indicating that having a little man is a great happiness.

Mark is madly worried only that his beloved Priscilla will again give birth to a baby as hard as her first daughter.

Daughter of Mark Zuckerberg - Maxima Chan Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg's daughter, Maxim Chan Zuckerberg, is a long-awaited and beloved girl who was born in 2015. The fact that his beloved princess was born, the happy dad announced through his own social network Facebook.

Maxima is a long-awaited baby, as she gave birth after three miscarriages by her mother. After the birth of the baby, Mark and Priscilla began to develop it in every possible way, using innovative developments.

Mark loves to mess around with the girl, constantly posting his innovative ideas online that help make life easier for parents. He constantly dresses Maxima in the characters of his favorite TV series, which, finally, appeared at the box office.

A girl from infancy is taught to swim, she loves animals, and especially her dog Bist. The baby's first word was "dog".

Daughter of Mark Zuckerberg - Augusta Chan Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg's daughter, Augusta Chan Zuckerberg, was born at the end of August 2017. Traditionally, one of the richest businessmen in the world announced the birth of another princess through his social network, specifying that he welcomes the baby and is already thinking about her future, which will be bright.

Mom and baby are doing great, and their star dad is already going on maternity leave a couple of times - in September and December. He is going to take care of little Augusta on his own while his Priscilla gains strength after giving birth.

Mark Zuckerberg's wife - Priscilla Chan

Mark Zuckerberg's wife, Priscilla Chan, appeared in the guy's life absolutely by accident, because he was not going to fall in love or start a family. At the same time, in 2002, in line for the bathroom at Harvard University after a party, Mark met Priscilla.

The girl appreciated the guy's computer humor and believed that he could create his own social network. Priscilla never demanded decisive action from Mark, so she was very happy when the guy proposed to her in 2012.

This event was timed to coincide with the day when Facebook shares began to break all records for stock exchange. The most interesting thing is that after five months of preparation, the wedding took place in the backyard of the house.

Priscilla Chan graduated from Harvard as a pediatrician, translator, and physician. A woman gives a lot of time and effort to charity aimed at the development of medicine and pedagogy.

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 rather primitive 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 guy 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 compositions.

Studying at Harvard

This may surprise some, 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.

Creation of Facebook

While studying at Harvard, Mark Zuckerberg came up with 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 who sponsored this project. After some time, a conflict occurred with the latter, which 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. First, it's real existing people 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?

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 courts, but never won a single case. As a result, they were paid compensation in the amount of $45 million.

In addition to the success story of Facebook, many are interested in family life 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.

1. Priscilla achieves her goals on her own. At the graduation of Quincy High School in 2003, it was she who was assigned to perform with farewell speech. In America, only those students who performed well during educational process. After graduating from high school, she entered Harward in the biology department. Between 2007 and 2008, she worked teaching activities. After these events future wife The brand entered Medical College to the Department of Pediatrics, which she successfully graduated shortly before her marriage.
2. This may surprise some, but Mark Zuckerberg met his wife even 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.
3. Mark and Priscilla do not like pathos and glamour. IN 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.
4. Priscilla is the initiator of Facebook's organ donation program and is generally active in charity work with her husband.
5. Before the wedding, 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 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 multimillion-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 more powerful people, and Facebook is 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"

Released in 2010 Feature Film about Mark Zuckerberg called The Social Network. The director of the picture was made and the screenwriter - 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 interesting project. But the main character already has his own idea and it is much more global.

The opinion of the creator of Facebook about the film "The Social Network"

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 flip-flops 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 the claims of the real Mark, story writer Aaron Sorkin, whose screenplay is an adaptation of Ben Metzrich's The Accidental Billionaires: The Making of Facebook, a tale of sex, money, genius and betrayal, maintained that the events of the picture were not fictional. , he noted that Erica Albright, played by actress Rooney Mara, is a real-life 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 how people communicate with each other. He also thanked Mark himself for allowing them to use events from his life as the basis for the film.

We would like to end our article with a few interesting facts about Zuckerberg and his brainchild:

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!

Mark Zuckerberg- Founder and developer of the popular Facebook network, the youngest billionaire in history. In 2010, he was recognized as the person of the year according to the American magazine Time. As the publication explains, the 26-year-old billionaire was chosen as Person of the Year for "bringing together more than half a billion people and drawing a map of social relations between them, creating a new system of information exchange, and changing our lives."

In 2010, the number of Facebook users exceeded 500 million people, and the figure of Zuckerberg was "mythologized" by Hollywood - in the fall of 2010, the film "The Social Network" was released on the screens about the history of the creation and development of Facebook.

« In a world where social structures above all, the virtual, public dossier is an information bomb. And in general, if a person has brains, he simply does not have the moral right to work not for himself, giving most of his time and the results of his achievements to his employer.» Mark Zuckerberg

Success Story, Biography of Mark Zuckerberg

Childhood, youth and student years of Mark Zuckerberg

Mark was born on May 14, 1984 in White Plains, southeast New York. He was the second of four children and only son in an intelligent family of a dentist and a psychiatrist.

The fact that the world is divided into programmers and users, Mark learned when he was 10 years old and he received his first PC (Quantex 486DX on an Intel 486 processor). Users on the computer work. Programmers change the world with computers. After the advent of the computer, Mark felt terribly grown up and literally did not leave the new toy for the first time. After a couple of months, he was tired of just changing the color of the background, and he began to read smart books, deciding to learn something more useful, namely programming.

Reading has been beneficial. With programming intricacies, Mark got used to it perfectly and, while still studying at high school, has written several small programs, such as a computer version of the popular board game Risk. But not all of his crafts were so harmless. In principle, Zuckerberg himself says that he would not want to immediately create something global, but would be happy to do a bunch of cool little things, and the Synapse program is just one of those. He wrote it for himself. The program was a smart mp3 player that, having carefully studied the owner's preferences and found out what kind of music, at what time of the day and how often, he listens, was able to generate playlists on his own, "guessing" which tracks the owner would like to hear right now. The unusual program became interested, neither more nor less, in Microsoft, and in Zuckerberg himself - both in Microsoft and in AOL. However, the young talent turned down the giants' offers to buy Synapse, and then politely turned down their invitation to cooperate. Just like that, Mark refused several tens, or maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars, and a job in one of the top IT corporations in the world.

It is surprising that with such enthusiasm, Zuckerberg found time for other activities: he did well in mathematics and natural sciences. He devoted himself with enthusiasm to such an extraordinary sport as fencing. I plunged into antiquity, studying ancient languages. Once I spent three months of school holidays at a summer school in ancient Greek courses. True, he changed his mind about entering the corresponding department, but retained the ability to read and write in both classical languages. And at the university I chose a rather unexpected, although understandable discipline - psychology.

University performance was so-so: the passion for programming took too much time. Sometimes preparing for exams required extraordinary decisions, as, for example, in the episode with 500 paintings in an art history course. There were two days left before the exams, and it was impossible to read at least something about each painting. Zuckerberg quickly created a website, on each page of which he put a picture, and asked fellow students to comment on the works. “After two hours,” the innovator recalls, comparing himself to Tom Sawyer painting a fence with the help of commercial ingenuity, “each picture was overgrown with comments, and I passed that exam perfectly.”

Creation of Facebook

There was a section on Harvard's internal computer network where students posted their photos and personal information. The photographs were so-so - the usual face and profile, tense facial expressions. And then it occurred to young Mark to frolic: he made a program that chose two random faces and offered to compare who is sexier. There was no end to those wishing to conduct a comparative analysis. By the evening of the first day, four thousand people had viewed the site. When the number of visitors exceeded twenty thousand, the server crashed due to overload. Mark appeared before a commission on computer hacking. Of course, they didn’t pat Zuckerberg on the head for this - he received a disciplinary sanction, but, apparently, even then he noticed that this kind of thing was of great interest to the people. Harvard, by the way, still refuses to comment on the incident.

However, the basis of the future communication masterpiece has already been created. On February 4, 2004, Mark launched a social network called "The Facebook", which was conceived as a social networking site for Harvard students. "The Facebook" has become popular among students mainly because of the convenience of self-organization into groups, courses and hangouts that already exist offline in universities. By opening The Facebook, you could find out where your friends live this year, which girls are cute and which are not, who, in the end, is this year's newcomer ... all this strongly resembles what Facebook is like today.

After the launch of the site, Zuckerberg told the press that Facebook was written in just a week, and this idea just matured in his head and was quickly implemented, "on the spot." Fortunately, fellow students also helped - together with Mark, Eduardo Severin, Dustin Moskowitz, Andrew McCollum and Christopher Hughes were also involved in the launch of the project.

Very quickly, the social network created by Zuckerberg outgrew the boundaries of the campus (Let me remind you that at that time there were no “classmates” and “Twitters”, they were cloned later), in the spring of 2004 it included all the colleges of the Ivy League. Users were invited to post photos and any information about themselves - from scientific and creative interests to gastronomic and love preferences. Also pictures, pictures, pictures...

Serious and promising projects at the stage of active development, as a rule, require substantial investments. But as life shows, these issues can be solved if there is purposefulness.

Mark spent on the business all the money set aside by his parents to pay for his studies, but this was naturally not enough for the megaproject. And so one summer, Zuckerberg rushed to Silicon Valley, where interesting ideas, if you're lucky, can get support. And again, luck smiled at the assertive guy. Like the hero of the Finnish writer Martti Larni, who left the house for matches and ended up in America, student Zuckerberg went to investigate and got stuck in Palo Alto - the heart of Silicon Valley.

On the street one evening, he chanced upon Sean Parker, an Internet icon and co-creator of the Napster file-sharing software. It turned out that Parker was moving to Palo Alto, but he didn't have an apartment yet. " We(Mark and his friends) just offered him to spend the night with us', says Mark. It was Parker who introduced Zuckerberg to Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal. An experienced businessman, after a fifteen-minute conversation, invested a red-haired youth for 500 thousand dollars. Zuckerberg wrote to the university an application for an indefinite academic leave, as another well-known Harvard dropout, Bill Gates, once did.

Half a million is only at first glance a lot of money. Mark and his team perfected their brainchild in rented premises in Palo Alto: some - sitting on wobbly chairs, some - right on the floor. There was no ventilation in the rooms where the servers stood. Under the Californian summer heat at 45 degrees the plastic struts melted around the edges.

In November 2004, the number of users crossed the one million mark. Six months later, with the help of Peter Thiel, the company managed to receive serious funds - $ 12.7 million from Accel Partners. In the fall of 2005, there were already more than 5 million active customers.

Soon the portal announced free registration - for any user with a valid email address. The percentage of customers over 30 years of age has grown significantly, and Facebook has established itself among the leaders of the Internet, consistently remaining the seventh most popular site in America.

In 2006, Zuckerberg began to receive the first proposals for the purchase. At first, the amounts were very cautious, but quickly began to increase. They offered 750 million dollars, but Mark refused and said that this was three times less than the amount that could be seriously discussed. Later, in the already mentioned negotiations with Yahoo, it was about a billion, but Zuckerberg again said no. Rumors say that there was also an offer from Google, and they gave more, but Facebook remained in the same hands, and rumors remained rumors.

The site, meanwhile, was overgrown not only with people, but also with new services, both successful and frankly failed. It was clear to everyone in the company that they were sitting on a lot of money, but coming up with elegant ways to get it from users turned out to be not such an easy task. Tested on site various methods introduction of contextual, as sparing as possible, advertising. There were, in this regard, scandals, in particular, related to data privacy (which turned out to be a big question) and the inability to permanently delete your account. In general, everything is natural - the larger the community, the greater the unrest.

2007 was definitely a year of change for Facebook. To begin with, Microsoft acquired a 1.6% stake in the company for $240 million. It's easy to calculate that, in Microsoft's understanding, the total value of Facebook is 15 billion pieces of paper with portraits of dead presidents. Far perishing here Yahoo and Google with their modest sums.

In 2009, Facebook officially opened the platform codes to everyone, so that everyone got the opportunity to create new applications for the site, whether they be toys, horoscopes, calendars, or something else. By the way, now more than 140 new applications are added to the site daily.

Madness has taken over the world. Even the pattern of casual dating has changed. The phrase “Will you give me a phone number?” was replaced by a request for a link to a Facebook profile. And this is really convenient: instead of checking for a long time by trial and error whether a person suits you or not, you can simply view his personal page. The popularity of Facebook has provided the convenience of self-organization into interest groups already existing offline or newly created.

A vengeful thief or a victim of envious people?

The launch of the project was accompanied by a scandal. Six days after the site opened, senior students brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra accuse Zuckerberg of stealing their idea. They claim to have hired Zuckerberg in 2003 to complete the creation of the social network HarvardConnection.com. According to them, Zuckerberg did not pass on the results of his work to them, but he took advantage of the developments received from them to create Facebook.

That same year, the Winklevosses and Narendra launch their own network, renamed ConnectU. And they continue to attack Zuckerberg, complaining about him to the Harvard administration and the Harvard Crimson newspaper. At first, Zuckerberg convinces journalists not to publish the investigation: he shows what he allegedly did for HarvardConnection.com, and explains that these developments have nothing to do with Facebook. But very inopportunely, another Harvard student, John Thomson, begins to tell in private conversations that Zuckerberg stole one of his ideas for Facebook. The newspaper decides to publish the article, which greatly offends Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg takes revenge on Harvard Crimson. According to the Silicon Alley Insider resource, in 2004 he hacked into the mailboxes of two journalists of the publication using the newly launched Facebook. It finds all users who have indicated their affiliation to the newspaper, and looks at the logs (i.e. history) of the wrong passwords they entered on Facebook. Zuckerberg's calculation is justified: two employees of the newspaper out of absent-mindedness tried to log into Facebook with a password from their mail. Silicon Alley Insider claims that Zuckerberg was lucky: he read with interest in their correspondence the comments about the editorial communication with him and HarvardConnection.com.

Brothers Winklevoss and Narendra sue, but the court dismisses their claim. They prove persistent and file another lawsuit. The second court examines the source codes to see if they were indeed stolen. But the truth is still not clear. The results of the examination were not made public: in 2009, Zuckerberg agreed to pay $45 million ($20 million in cash, and the rest in Facebook shares) to ConnectU as part of a pre-trial settlement procedure. After that, the case was closed. By that point, ConnectU had less than 100,000 users, while Facebook boasted 150 million.

But the Winklevoss brothers did not rest on this, they filed a petition with the US Federal Court of Appeals, but they were denied a review of the case. According to their lawyer, Jerome Faulk, the appeal court denied the brothers a review of the case, based only on the settlement agreement of the parties, which states that the participants in the trial, after signing the document, do not have the right to resume the trial. According to the lawyer, decision illegally, since Mark Zuckerberg, during the proceedings in 2008, provided false information about the value of the company.

On May 17, 2011, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss filed a lawsuit against Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg in Supreme Court USA. This is the brothers' last attempt to reconsider the case.

Mark Zuckerberg's lifestyle

Having received the status of a billionaire, Zuckerberg himself did not change his lifestyle. As a student, he habitually rents a housing (apartment) with a minimum of amenities in Palo Alto, where there is not even a bed, and sleeps on a mattress on the floor. Way to work overcomes on foot or by bicycle. Favorite appearance- well-worn trousers, T-shirt and sandals on bare feet. True, it is recognized that for trips to such "adult" events as the forum in Davos, he saved a decent suit. His girlfriend's name is Priscilla Chen, she has Chinese roots. Our hero, while still in his freshman year at Harvard, confessed in an online diary that he likes Asian girls.

The spirit of the young founding father is also reflected in the Facebook headquarters. The three buildings look decent and modern, but the image student hostel have not lost. Casually dressed employees, whose number has already exceeded 400 people, appear at work strongly after dinner, but also linger on it until the roosters. So that everyday life does not interfere with creativity, food, laundry and other services are provided right in the office, and free of charge.

It is impossible not to note Mark's sensible view of his "empire". He understands that technological breakthroughs are one thing, but business strategy is something else, and in these things he is not so well versed. The news has been greeted with approval in the business community that experienced Google manager Sheryl Sandberg has been appointed to manage Facebook's day-to-day operations.

Aspirations means mass media learning as much as possible about Mark Zuckerberg is rarely successful. This is because the author of such a successful project is an extremely secretive, inaccessible person who does not want to demonstrate himself. If there are very short interviews, then in them a young and talented figure is basically lost, stammers, stutters, in general, feels very awkward in front of the camera (this was the case on the Oprah Winfrey show). However, most analysts are convinced that this state of affairs is a temporary phenomenon and very soon Mark will definitely outshine even the most advanced speakers of our time.

Mark Zuckerberg's Success Secrets

Unlike other well-known billionaires, Mark Zuckerberg is in no hurry to reveal his secrets, therefore, many experts are trying to analyze the personality of the Facebook founder on their own in order to understand how the 26-year-old young man did you manage to do what 99 percent of people today cannot do?

First of all, it should be noted that Mark always understood the difference between a technological breakthrough and a creative strategy. And if he is not strong in the latter, then he is happy to entrust this area of ​​work to a good manager. Although in the field of management, Mark cannot be considered such a mediocrity, because in the most miraculous way, the best of the best get into his team, specialists who have been hunted for years large companies. Many argue that Zuckerberg has a rare ability to properly negotiate.

Mark Zuckerberg is extremely demanding. He likes to argue, rarely praises employees and strives to do everything so that they work with their souls, completely devoting themselves to their work. However, there are simply no indifferent people in Mark's team.

Many psychologists say that Mark's modesty and unpretentiousness in terms of comfort just in every possible way contribute to the fact that he can fully concentrate on his main mission- the development of the Facebook network. In general, about simplicity and even some negligence in business negotiations The brand is legendary. So one day he refused a meeting with a Microsoft representative, which was scheduled for 8.00. " At this time I'm still sleeping" Mark said. When Zuckerberg was invited to discuss cooperation with Yahoo, he said that a girl was visiting him that day. No talk that we are talking about a deal for a billion dollars had no effect on Mark. No need to rush - this principle Zuckerberg learned in his school days after the first proposal from Microsoft. Today, Mark is true to himself, and the money still goes into his hands. The youngest billionaire today has become the idol of millions of people who want to reach the same unprecedented heights. But only a few can do it...

What can be said today about Mark as a businessman and a prominent IT figure? Probably nothing specific. Even experts disagree - some call Facebook the new Google, and Zuckerberg a replacement for Page and Sergey Brin, others are very cautious, especially after litigation and accusations of stealing ideas. It is still not entirely clear what in this whole story was a competent calculation, and what was luck and a wave caught by chance. The most frequent characteristic of Mark, sounding from the mouths of most experts, critics and the mighty of the world of this, boils down to one phrase: "He is still so young." And it’s hard to disagree with this: Mark’s age really makes it difficult to consider who he is - young genius or just a very lucky guy who is favored by circumstances.

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