67 Facts About Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is an American business magnate, internet entrepreneur, and philanthropist.

Mark Zuckerberg took the company public in May 2012 with majority shares.

Mark Zuckerberg has used his funds to organize multiple philanthropic endeavors, including the establishment of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

Mark Zuckerberg has been listed as one of the most influential people in the world on four occasions in 2008,2011,2016 and 2019 respectively and nominated as a finalist in 2009,2012,2014,2015,2017,2018,2020,2021 and 2022.

Mark Zuckerberg was named the Person of the Year by Time magazine in 2010, the same year when Facebook eclipsed more than half a billion users.

In December 2016, Mark Zuckerberg was ranked tenth on Forbes list of The World's Most Powerful People.

Mark Elliot Zuckerberg was born on on May 14,1984, in White Plains, New York to psychiatrist Karen and dentist Edward Zuckerberg.

Mark Zuckerberg's great-grandparents were Jewish emigrants from Austria, Germany, and Poland.

Mark Zuckerberg attended high school at Ardsley High School before transferring to Phillips Exeter Academy.

Mark Zuckerberg began using computers and writing software in middle school.

The New Yorker noted that by the time Mark Zuckerberg began classes at Harvard in 2002, he had already achieved a "reputation as a programming prodigy".

Mark Zuckerberg studied psychology and computer science and belonged to Alpha Epsilon Pi and Kirkland House.

Mark Zuckerberg apologized publicly, and the student paper ran articles stating that his site was "completely improper".

In January 2004, Mark Zuckerberg began writing code for a new website.

On February 4,2004, Mark Zuckerberg launched "Thefacebook", originally located at thefacebook.

An earlier inspiration for Facebook may have come from Phillips Exeter Academy, the prep school from which Mark Zuckerberg graduated in 2002.

Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook started off as just a "Harvard thing" until he decided to spread it to other schools, enlisting the help of roommate Dustin Moskovitz.

Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard in his sophomore year in order to complete the project.

On July 21,2010, Zuckerberg reported that the company reached the 500-million-user mark.

In 2010, Steven Levy, who wrote the 1984 book Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, wrote that Mark Zuckerberg "clearly thinks of himself as a hacker".

Mark Zuckerberg said that "it's OK to break things" "to make them better".

Mark Zuckerberg provided music, food, and beer at the hackathons, and many Facebook staff members, including Zuckerberg, regularly attended.

In 2007, Mark Zuckerberg was added to MIT Technology Review's TR35 list as one of the top 35 innovators in the world under the age of 35.

Mark Zuckerberg ranked number 23 on the Vanity Fair 100 list in 2009.

In 2010, Mark Zuckerberg was chosen as number 16 in New Statesmans annual survey of the world's 50 most influential figures.

On October 1,2012, Zuckerberg visited Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow to stimulate social media innovation in Russia and to boost Facebook's position in the Russian market.

Mark Zuckerberg then explained that this is intertwined with the aim of the Internet.

Mark Zuckerberg was the keynote speaker at the 2014 Mobile World Congress, held in Barcelona, Spain, in March 2014, which was attended by 75,000 delegates.

Various media sources highlighted the connection between Facebook's focus on mobile technology and Mark Zuckerberg's speech, stating that mobile represents the future of the company.

Alongside other American technology figures like Jeff Bezos and Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg hosted visiting Chinese politician Lu Wei, known as the "Internet czar" for his influence in the enforcement of China's online policy, at Facebook's headquarters on December 8,2014.

On May 25,2017, at Harvard's 366th commencement Day, Mark Zuckerberg, after giving a commencement speech, received an honorary degree from Harvard.

In January 2019, Mark Zuckerberg laid plans to integrate an end-to-end encrypted system for three major social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

The project faced significant opposition in India, where activists said its limited internet ran counter to the principle of net neutrality; Mark Zuckerberg responded that a limited internet was better than no internet.

Mark Zuckerberg is a board member of the solar sail spacecraft development project Breakthrough Starshot, which he co-founded in 2016.

In June 2010, Paul Ceglia, the owner of a wood pellet fuel company in Allegany County, upstate New York, filed suit against Mark Zuckerberg, claiming 84 percent ownership of Facebook and seeking monetary damages.

Mark Zuckerberg was developing other projects at the time, among which was Facemash, the predecessor of Facebook, but did not register the domain name thefacebook.

In January 2017, Mark Zuckerberg filed eight "quiet title and partition" lawsuits against hundreds of native Hawaiians to claim small tracts of land which they own.

University of Hawaii law professor Kapua Sproat stated that Mark Zuckerberg's lawsuits was "the face of neocolonialism".

Mark Zuckerberg responded to criticisms in a Facebook post, stating that the lawsuits were a good faith effort to pay the partial owners of the land their "fair share".

Mark Zuckerberg stated that he regretted not taking the time to understand the process and its history before moving ahead.

Mark Zuckerberg has called the whole affair a breach of trust between Aleksandr Kogan, Cambridge Analytica, and Facebook.

Mark Zuckerberg has refused requests to appear to give evidence on the matter to a Parliamentary committee in the United Kingdom.

In March 2021, it was announced that Mark Zuckerberg would testify before Congress again on March 26, when he will be questioned about the role that Facebook played in the January 6,2021 attack on the US Capitol Building.

On January 29,2011, Mark Zuckerberg made a surprise guest appearance on Saturday Night Live, which was hosted by Jesse Eisenberg.

Eisenberg asked Mark Zuckerberg, who had been critical of his portrayal by the film, what he thought of the movie.

Mark Zuckerberg voiced himself on an episode of The Simpsons titled "Loan-a Lisa", which first aired on October 3,2010.

Mark Zuckerberg tells Lisa that she does not need to graduate from college to be wildly successful, referencing Bill Gates and Richard Branson as examples.

Mark Zuckerberg was parodied in the South Park episode "Franchise Prequel".

Some journalists and academics have said the Chan Mark Zuckerberg Initiative conducts philanthrocapitalism.

In 2002, Mark Zuckerberg registered to vote in Westchester County, New York, where he grew up, but did not cast a ballot until November 2008.

Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters Spokeswoman, Elma Rosas, told Bloomberg that Mark Zuckerberg is listed as "no preference" on voter rolls, and he voted in at least two of the past three general elections, in 2008 and 2012.

Mark Zuckerberg has never revealed his own political affiliation or voting history: some news outlets consider him to be a conservative, while others consider him liberal.

On February 13,2013, Mark Zuckerberg hosted his first ever fundraising event for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

Later that year, Mark Zuckerberg hosted a campaign fundraiser for Newark mayor Cory Booker, who was running in the 2013 New Jersey special Senate election.

In December 2012, Mark Zuckerberg donated 18 million shares to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a community organization that includes education in its list of grant-making areas.

In June 2013, Mark Zuckerberg joined Facebook employees in a company float as part of the annual San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Celebration.

Mark Zuckerberg first participated in the event in 2011, with 70 employees, and this number increased to 700 for the 2013 march.

When questioned about the mid-2013 PRISM scandal at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in September 2013, Mark Zuckerberg stated that the US government "blew it".

Mark Zuckerberg further explained that the government performed poorly in regard to the protection of the freedoms of its citizens, the economy, and companies.

Mark Zuckerberg placed a statement on his Facebook wall on December 9,2015, which said that he wants "to add my voice in support of Muslims in our community and around the world" in response to the aftermath of the November 2015 Paris attacks and the 2015 San Bernardino attack.

On February 24,2016, Mark Zuckerberg sent out a company-wide internal memo to employees formally rebuking employees who had crossed out handwritten "Black Lives Matter" phrases on the company walls and had written "All Lives Matter" in their place.

In January 2017, Mark Zuckerberg criticized Donald Trump's executive order to severely limit immigrants and refugees from some countries.

Mark Zuckerberg met his future wife, fellow Harvard student Priscilla Chan, at a frat party during his sophomore year there.

In September 2010, Chan, who was by then a medical student at the University of California, San Francisco, moved into Mark Zuckerberg's rented house in Palo Alto, California.

On July 31,2015, Mark Zuckerberg revealed they were expecting a baby girl and that Chan had previously experienced three miscarriages.

Mark Zuckerberg met with farmers and business owners, and spoke at Mother Emanuel, where a shooting took place in 2015.

Mark Zuckerberg competed in a BJJ tournament on May 6,2023, and won both a silver and gold medal in gi and no gi, competing at white belt.