Great Tech Entrepreneurs:
Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg[1]
is an American computer programmer, Internet entrepreneur and philanthropist.
He is the CEO and Co-Founder of the Social Networking website Facebook[2].
He is today ranked as the 5th richest person in the world. Mark grew up in the
Hudson River are an hour away from New York. As a kid, his favourite sport was
fencing. But he soon discovered another passion: computers. He learned
programming and networking using home computers, something very typical for
kids his age, creating his own version of the board-game "Risk". He
was clearly the most clever kid in his class. At age 16, Mark decides to leave
his family to attend a prestigious school in Boston. After that, he was
accepted into Harvard.
Like most successful
Tech Entrepreneurs, he was a loner. The most successful people in the Tech
field focus more on their own goals and ambitions than on partying or extending
their social reach. They know they will have time for that AFTER they have
succeeded. That doesn't mean they are unsociable or don't have friends, but it
does mean that it's not amongst their top priorities. At campus, he meets
Eduardo Severin[3], a
Brazilian entrepreneur and economist who at age 20 already had made some
thousands in the stock market.
In 2003, Mark has an
idea that will change his life forever. Checking the University campus student
database, he comes up with a way to compile all that information in one site,
and to make it FUN, he decides to run a beauty contest. To obtain all the
information he needed, he hacked the campus server. His first name for his
concept was Facemash. He then made available the pictures to all people in the
campus, and initiated a "who is hotter contest". The authorities at
Harvard where not happy about this, and sanctioned him. He became very popular
on campus, attracting the attention two rich kids that did not know anything
about programming: Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss[4].
They already had their own concept: "Harvard Connection", with the
goal of connecting students at Harvard and also with other Universities in the
US. They hired Mark as their programmer, but did not sign him a contract. Mark
worked for the Winklevoss brothers but started developing his own Social
Network, which he would call "The Facebook". For Financing, he turned
to his friend: Eduardo Saverin. Eduardo put up the money in exchange for a % in
the company and together they launched "The Facebook". In a few
months, the Facebook had expanded to 9 Universities. Mark then dropped out from
Harvard to move to Silicon Valley. Eduardo Saverin, on the other hand, preferred
to stay in New York to continue developing the Business and finish his
University studies.
Mark decided to
replace Eduardo with Sean Parker[5],
who had created Napster[6].
A party animal, it was very easy for Sean Parker to attract investors. Meanwhile,
the Winklevoss brothers heard about the Facebook and noticed that the concept
was very similar to the "Harvard Connection". The brothers filed a
lawsuit against Mark Zuckerberg. In 2008, Mark came to an agreement with the
brothers for 31 million dollars. Eduardo Saverin was then cut out from the
Facebook by a financial trick of increasing the capital and liquating his
share. Severin came to an agreement and got a 2.5 billion USD package as
compensation. Not so bad for a Business kid!!!
A simple guy, in 2011
Mark was worth 15 billions USD but was still renting a small house in Palo
Alto, California! At the age of 27, Mark was named "person of the year"
by Time magazine. In 2012, Facebook went public, being worth more than 100
billion dollars with 1.35 billion users worldwide.
Cristian Bøhnsdalen
CMO/CFO & Co-Founder @ITRevolusjonen
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