Mark Zuckerberg: The Facebook CEO’s Fortune

How rich is Mark Zuckerberg?

Mark Elliot Zuckerberg, born on May 14, 1984 in New York State, is the founder and CEO of Facebook Inc., one of the richest people in the world and the second youngest self-made billionaire of all time. In 2009 he was the youngest billionaire. However, the eight days younger Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz also became a billionaire in 2010 and is therefore considered the youngest self-made billionaire. However, Mark Zuckerberg “earns” no more than a US dollar salary per year, which he himself chose. But he owns a lot of money with his 28% stake in Facebook. The cherished Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth is € 109.35 billion. In a public letter to his first-born daughter Max, the billionaire announced that he would donate 99% of his equity stake during his life.

Mark Zuckerberg is among the top 10 richest people in the world

Mark Zuckerberg can only do one Annual earnings of $ 1 but is in the top 10 richest men in the world with his fortune, according to Forbes. Before Google Boss Larry Page since 2014, just like before Sergey Brin. Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who currently occupies second place with 122.44 billion euros, has not yet come close. But how do you get that fortune if you only pay yourself a symbolic US dollar a year? Above all, it is the stocks with which Zuckerberg generates this net worth. After all, he still holds 28% of Facebook Inc. This means that as the share price rises, he increases his wealth and that a falling share price reduces his wealth.

And the share price is also the reason for its symbolic content. Many large entrepreneurs in the United States pay only a dollar. This allows them to maximize the profits of their company and thereby drive stock prices higher. You yourself benefit from this, as does your company. In addition, Mark Zuckerberg owns one with his wife Priscilla, whom he has known since university humble house in Palo Alto with direct contact with the neighbors.

The career of Mark Zuckerberg

Even at a young age, Zuckerberg showed one high affinity for computers and programming languages. When he was still attending middle school, his father taught him the Atari BASIC programming language and even hired him a teacher – none other than the then software developer David Newman – for whom Mark Zuckerberg was to become his most demanding student. Because Zuckerberg was so gifted that it was anything but easy for Newman to get ahead of his apprentice.

What Zuckerberg had already been very interested in in those early years was virtual communication and so he developed a kind of messenger with which his father, a dentist, should be able to contact his practice from home via computer. But it wasn’t just virtual communication that attracted him, but also simple computer games. His advantage was that at that time he already had a large and diversified network of artists who provided him with various ideas and materials for his smaller games. That network also belonged to Co-founder of Napster Sean Parker, played by Justin Timberlake in The Social Network. What many do not know, however, is that Zuckerberg, who at that time had not yet monetized his software programming skills, also had a weakness for classical philology, i.e. Latin and ancient Greek.

The time at Harvard

During his time at Harvard University, Mark Zuckerberg’s future path would emerge. Because although he was registered for computer science and psychology, he programmed on the side CourseMach. This basically useful program made it possible to see which courses other students have chosen. So you could adjust your choice of course accordingly if necessary. It was also possible to see if friends had chosen the same course that one was about to choose. So you could be sure to form study groups during the course if there were any questions or ambiguities. Although CourseMach was very popular, Mark Zuckerberg earned nothing from that program. And yet it should be an important step on his way to Facebook.

A few weeks later, Mark Zuckerberg published the controversial one FaceMash. This program and this website were based on the CourseMash algorithm. With the difference that no courses were rated and chosen, but the faces of Zuckerberg’s fellow students. As in many other US student residences

There were also so-called “face books” in Zuckerberg’s dormitory. These are basically photo albums in which the pictures of all the residents of a dormitory can be seen with a little bit of information about themselves. Zuckerberg used these images without the permission of their roommates and created a website with the scanned material on which two faces were always facing each other and you could choose which face looked more attractive. After a short time, complaints increased, which resulted in a public apology from Zuckerberg. In addition, but independently, the university took the website offline because it was overloading its servers.

(the) facebook

But this didn’t affect Zuckerberg’s creativity. Just one semester later Mark Zuckerberg now developed thefacebook. The article was later dropped and was reduced to Facebook. The well-known social network, which was very similar to a traditional face book in its early phase. Each user had a page with a personal picture and a few pieces of information about themselves. There was also a short status line in which you could write what you were doing.

Just days after it started, however, some of the fellow students involved in the project – the brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra – complained about assuming they were creating a social network for their university while Zuckerberg shared their ideas for themselves and used his own ideas. The dispute was later judged in their favor. On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launched Facebook, officially among the co-founders: Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverin. Thefacebook was initially reserved for students at American universities. It was only some time later that the network was to be open to the whole world.

Goals for Facebook

At that time, Mark Zuckerberg also decided to move to Palo Alto, California. Palo Alto, also known as Silicon Valley, was of course the right place to build a fruitful network in the computer industry. At the same time – even in the early stages of facebook – Zuckerberg received great offers from larger companies that were ready to buy facebook. Offers in the millions were represented depending on the assessment, but Zuckerberg declined a sale from Facebook. Despite the successful start, the first official Facebook office was a leased house.
Mark Zuckerberg should monetize his network through more and more advertising, whereby it was important to him that the advertising never became a disruptive measure. Because he wanted to see a growing influx of visitors in the future too. According to his own statement, his goal for the future is to enable internet access for all people in the world. He also wants to multiply the current number of Facebook users.

Image sources:
Cover picture: Solarpix / PR Photos
Mark Zuckerberg & Facebook: Mandoga Media / PR Photos
Facebook: nopparat.k / Bigstock.com