Mark Zuckerberg -physicsknow
Born May 14, 1984
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg computer programmer who was cofounder and CEO of Facebook, a social networking Web site.
After attending Phillips Exeter Academy, Zuckerberg enrolled at Harvard University in 2002. On February 4, 2004, he launched thefacebook.com(renamed Facebook in 2005), a directory in which fellow Harvard students entered their own information and photos into a template that he had devised. Within two weeks half of the student body had signed up. Zuckerberg’s roommates, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, helped him add features and make the site available to other campuses across the country. Facebook quickly became popular as registered users could create profiles, upload photos and other media, and keep in touch with friends. It differed from other social networking sites, however, in its emphasis on real names (and e-mail addresses), or “trusted connections.” It also laid particular emphasis on networking, with information disseminated not only to each individual’s network of friends but also to friends of friends—what Zuckerberg called the “social graph.”
In the summer of 2004 the trio moved their headquarters to Palo Alto, California, where Zuckerberg talked venture capitalist Peter Thiel into giving them seed money. Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard to concentrate on the fledgling company, of which he became CEO and president. In May 2005 Facebook received its first major infusion of venture capital ($12.7 million). Four months later Facebook opened to registration by high-school students. Meanwhile, foreign colleges and universities also began to sign up, and by September 2006 anyone with an e-mail address could join a regional network based on where he or she lived. About that time Zuckerberg turned down a $1 billion buyout offer from Yahoo!, but in 2007 Facebook struck a deal with Microsoft in which the software company paid $240 million for a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook; two years later Digital Sky Technologies purchased a 1.96 percent share for $200 million. In 2008 Zuckerberg’s new worth was estimated at about $1.5 billion. After Facebook’s initial public offering (IPO) of stock in 2012, Zuckerberg’s net worth was estimated at more than $19 billion. In April 2017 his net worth is 59.4 billion. Now monthly Facebook has 1 billion active users.
Nevertheless, Zuckerberg has remained true to his initial vision – to create a website that the entire world can use to communicate openly and easily with one another. Hes turned down opportunities to sell the site, often for multi-billion dollar sums. Hes even turned down chances to increase the sites income from ad revenue, instead preferring to keep the user experience clean and pure.The end result is one of the worlds biggest online businesses, and an icon of the tech renaissance thats occurred recently.Although its true value is debatable, its safe to say that Facebook, and its creator Mark Zuckerberg, are two of the twenty-first centurys most influential, controversial, and potentially powerful figures.
0 comments:
Post a Comment