Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: 28 facts on his 28th birthday

14 May 2012

Birthday boy: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg turns 28 today

He’s not even 30 yet – in fact, he turns 28 today – and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has accomplished what few people would accomplish in a lifetime when it comes to business.

What’s made him what he is today? Siliconrepublic.com looks at 28 facts about Zuckerberg, some of which provide insight into his success.

1/ Zuckerberg was born in White Plains, New York, to Karen (a psychiatrist) and Edward (a dentist) Zuckerberg.

2/ He has three sisters: Randy, Donna and Arielle.

3/ Though he was raised Jewish, he now describes himself as an atheist.

4/ He began using computers and writing software as a child.

5/ On his application to Harvard University, he listed French, Hebrew, Latin, and ancient Greek as languages he could read and write.

6/ He began learning Mandarin Chinese in 2010. “I have always been interested in Chinese culture and learning a language is a great way to learn about a culture. Learning a language is also a good intellectual challenge and Mandarin is a particularly difficult language for English-speakers.”

7/ He became a vegetarian last year and will only eat meat “if I kill the animal myself”.

8/ He lists Albert Einstein’s “Make things as simple as possible but no simpler” as one of his favourite quotations.

9/ He has a dog named Beast. The dog has his own Facebook page.

10/ Zuckerberg met his girlfriend, Priscilla Chan, a party put on by his fraternity during his sophomore year in 2003.

11/ He launched Facebook from his Harvard dormitory room on 4 February 2004.

12/ By July 2011, Zuckerberg became the most-followed user on Google’s social network Google+, overtaking Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

13/ Zuckerberg’s Facebook page has 13m subscribers.

14/ If Zuckerberg lives to be 80, he can spend US$300,000 of his worth per day. (As of 2012, his personal wealth is estimated to be US$17.5bn, making him one of the world’s youngest billionaires)

15/ Despite the recent flack he has received about wearing a hoodie to meet with investors, he can dress up. For example, he wore a tie daily in 2009. “My 2009 challenge was to wear a tie for a whole year. After the start of the recession in 2008, I wanted to signal to everyone at Facebook that this was a serious year for us. Great companies thrive by investing more heavily while everyone else is cutting back during a recession. But great companies also make sure they’re financially strong and sustainable. My tie was the symbol of how serious and important a year this was, and I wore it every day to show this.”

16/ He walks to work in the morning, though he does have a Subaru Forester.

17/ His greatest creative or intellectual inspirations come to him when he’s pacing.

18/ As of February 2012, Zuckerberg is the largest individual shareholder of Facebook with 28.4pc of the common stock and 56.9pc of the voting power.

19/ Zuckerberg is colour blind – he can’t see red and green, but can see blue best.

20/ Among the people he subscribes to on his Facebook page are rapper Snoop Dogg and Glee actress Lea Michele.

21/ His favourite music includes U2, Lady Gaga, Green Day, Radiohead, The Killers and Taylor Swift.

22/ He lists Hero, Fearless and Moneyball as his favourite films.

23/ His interests include ‘eliminating desire’, ‘making things’, and ‘minimalism’.

24/ He lives in Palo Alto, California, with his girlfriend.

25/ Tennis and fencing are his favourite sports.

26/ Zuckerberg said in an interview with PBS in 2011 that Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs had advised him on how to create a management team at Facebook that was “focused on building as high quality and good things as you are.”

27/ When The Social Network, the film about Facebook came out, Zuckerberg had said the only accurate thing about it was his character’s wardrobe. “I think that they got every single T-shirt that they had the Mark Zuckerberg character wearing right. I think I actually own those T-shirts.”

28/ He voiced himself on an episode of The Simpsons, ‘Loan-a Lisa’, which first aired on 3 October 2010.

Sources: Wikipedia, Facebook

Tina Costanza was a journalist and sub-editor at Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com