Introduction
Unless you have buried your head in the sand for the past decade, ignoring not only the internet but also newspaper, television, cinema, and water cooler dicussions, you cannot have missed the social media phenomenon which is Facebook. It has an estimated 1.5 billion users, in almost every corner of the globe, and is the driving force behind Free Basics, an app which provides free internet service in the developing world.
Zuckerberg himself has not only made exorbitant wealth, leaving relatively little controversy in his wake, but also positioned himself at the forefront of enterprise and innovation. He has been voted as TIme magazine's man of the year, and is the poster child for the tech world. Along with Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, men many years his senior, he was one of the key signatories to The Giving Pledge, and as a result he is leading the way for philanthropists. His subsequent promise to donate 99% of his Facebook shares to charity, during his lifetime, shows his level of commitment to this ideal.
The early chapters of this blog are laid out roughly in chronological order: first of all, we discuss Zuckerberg's childhood and education, then his early forays into social media and programming, the birth and growth of Facebook, and his launch of Internet.org. In the second part of the blog, we look more widely at his estimated wealth, awards and accolades, philanthropic effort, political involvement, and last but not least, his personal life.
THroughout the blog you will find lessons we have drawn form Zuckerberg's life and work, which you can apply in your own life. Though not all of these lessons will be personally applicable, you can take inspiration from them, and put into practice those that are most relevant to you.
Childhood and Education
Right from the world go, Mark Zukerberg was a child prodigy, a fascinating and precocious child with seemingly infinite capacity to learn and innovate. Born on 14 May, 1984 in White Plains, New York, the son of two professional parents, dentist Edward Zukerberg and psychiatrist Karen Kempner, Zukerberg and his three sisters were raised in new York state, and then in new Hampshire.
A commitment to education, from an early age, stands you in good stead later in life.
All the members of the Zuckerberg family were academically gifted and professionally high achievers. Zuckerberg was no exception. At Phillips Exeter Academy, a co-educational independent school for boarding and day students, Zuckerberg followed in the footsteps of numerous notable alumni, including Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, Loyed Shapley, winner of the 2012 Nobal Prize in economics, and Adam D'Angelo, computer scientist and co-founder of the billion-doller question and answer website, Quora. He won academic Prizes in maths, astronomy, physics, and by the time he applied to Harvard University, he could read and write French, Hebrew, Latin, and ancient Greek, in addition to his native English.
Don't ever be embarrassed about being smart, or about having a diverse range of interests.
Zuckerberg's interest in computer programming began whilst he was still at middle school. He learned Atari BASIC programming from his father, then took private classes with software developer David Newman. Still in high school, Zuckerberg enrolled in a graduate class at the liberal arts college, Mercy College, in New York, and he built a number of programmes, including computer games illustrated by his friends, ZuckNet, a primitive version of AOL's Instant Massenger ( released the following year ), which enable all the computers in his house to communicate with those in his father's dental practice, and the Synapse and predict users' listening preferences. Zuckerberg's Synapse Media Player was featured in both Slashdot and PC Magazine, where it received a rating of 3/5 from reviewers.
"I got my first computer in the 6th grade or so. As soon as I got it, I was interested in finding out how it worked and how the programs worked and then figuring out how to write programs at just deeper and deeper levels within the system." -- Mark Zuckerberg
It is never too soon to discover your passion and start developing your ideas.
Zuckerberg enrolled at Harvard University, signing up for classes in computer science and psychology. He belonged to the Alpha Epsilon Pi ( AEIl or AEPi ) fraternity, which is based upon Jewish principles ( Zuckerberg was raised Jewish, see: Personal life ), and notable members have included Nobal Prize Winners, Olympic sportsmen, attorney generals, film makers, entrepreneurs, and even the inventor of Tinder. It was a network which would stand Zuckerberg in good stead as he pursued his own commercial ambitions. Zuckerberg aslo belonged to Kirkland HOuse, an undergraduate house popular with Harvard's athletes.
The network of people around you has a significant impact on the likelihood tht your projects will succed.
Although Zuckerberg is undoubtedly academically able. amd passionate about his subjects, he did not complete his degree at Harvard. He decided instead to take a semester off from studying to concentrate on developing Facebook, then dropped out of the university entirely to devote his full attention to the company's growth.