Mark Zuckerberg has built an empire the envy of many. But where did it all begin?
Everybody knows the highlights of Mark Zuckerberg’s life, he’s become so eponymous in the digital age that there was even a major blockbuster film made about the creation of Facebook: The Social Network.
Starting out as a service just for those attending Harvard University, Facebook has evolved into an enormous beast in the decade since. But did you know that, prior to his Facebook days, Zuckerberg’s programme that learnt users’ musical taste was subject to a $1m bid by Microsoft? He turned it down.
One of the most famous college dropouts of the noughties, Zuckerberg’s rise has been meteoric. From his Facemash beginnings to his dealings with the Winklevosses, Facebook emerged and has become as much a colloquial verb as Google, Superglue and Hoover.
Upon the birth of their first daughter, Max, Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan decided they were going to donate 99pc of their Facebook shares – valued at $45bn at the time – to charity over their lifetime.
Today, Zuckerberg’s dealings stretch far beyond Facebook. There’s his plans to build an AI capable of dominating Go – although Google destroyed him in that race – and his plans to provide internet access to the entire globe.
But it all started with an idea and a desire to programme things. The ever-wonderful Anna Vital’s infographic tells the story best.
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Mark Zuckerberg image via Brian Solis/Flickr
