Mark Zuckerberg has become one of the most recognizable tech leader in the world due to his famous creation Facebook. He is the eighth richest man in the world as of 2020 and one of the most influential people of the current age. He has donated a lot of money towards important charities like other tech entrepreneurs like Bill Gates.
Early Life: Zuckerberg was born on May 14, 1984 in New York. His father was a dentist and mother was a psychiatrist. Since his early age, Mark was naturally talented in coding and programming. He told in an interview that his father gave him a book “C++ for Dummies” as a birthday gift then onwards he entered into the world of coding. His tutor David Newman also recognized his talent of coding referring to him as a prodigy. Even though ironically Zuckerberg dropped out of college, he is one of the famous and rich person of the world. When he was 12, he created a messaging program called zucknet that his father used in his dental office allowing the receptionist to notify him of new patients without yelling across the office. It was considered a primitive version of AOL Instant Messenger, which came out the following year. Zuckerberg later studied at Phillips Exeter Academy, an exclusive preparatory school in New Hampshire. He also excelled in literature, earning a diploma in classics, but his coding skills were so good that big companies approached him before he even entered College to buy his programs. When he was a senior in high school, he created an app called synapse media player similar to Spotify. He was approached by several companies with job offers including AOL and Microsoft before he graduated high school, but he turned them all down. After graduating from Exeter in 2002, Zuckerberg enrolled at Harvard University. After his sophomore year, Zuckerberg dropped out of college to devote himself to his new company, Facebook, full time.
Later on, Terry Semel the former CEO of Yahoo offered Zuckerberg a billion dollars for the Facebook but Zuckerberg denied the offer saying that Facebook was his baby that he wanted to keep growing and running it. CEO of Yahoo reportedly said that he had never met a person who would turn down a 1 billion dollar offer. Today considering the net worth of Facebook, it seems like Mark Zuckerberg was right about growing his company on his own.
It is estimated that the net worth of Mark Zuckerberg is currently $82.6 billion. Despite his billions Zuckerberg does not have a taste for opulence, especially when it comes to cars and clothes. He does however have an affinity for developing his Real Estate portfolio and beside his property in the urban centers, he owns an Island in Hawaii as well. He makes a lot of money in just one minute, which is why his net worth is even higher than some countries GDP, such as Jordan, Nicaragua and Barbados, which is $46.9 billion, $15.4 billion, and $5.5 billion respectively. According to an estimate in 2018 only, Zuckerberg earned roughly 1.7 million dollars an hour.
Philanthropy: Zuckerberg and his wife Chan are very well-known philanthropist, as they donate most of their vast wealth to good causes and one of the major philanthropic acts include signing “the giving pledge”. The giving pledge is a commitment by the world of wealthiest individuals and families to dedicate the majority of their wealth to giving back Bill & Melinda Gates launched the pledge with Warren Buffett. Zuckerberg and his wife Chan were some of the first people to sign the giving pledge in 2010 and they focus their philanthropic efforts on education and medical research Zuckerberg and Chan decided in 2014 to donate a hundred and twenty million dollars to schools in the Bay Area for years earlier. They had pledged a hundred million dollars to the public school system in Newark, New Jersey through the Chan Zuckerberg initiative, which was founded in December 2015 to advance the couple’s goals of health. The famous couple also pledged to donate at least three billion dollars over the next decade to cure all Disease by the end of the 21st century. Mark Zuckerberg announced in 2015 that he intended to give away 99% of his Facebook shares then valued at forty five billion dollars during his life. In September 2016, Zuckerberg and Chan announced that the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), the company into which they put their Facebook shares, would invest at least $3 billion into scientific research over the next decade to help “cure, prevent and manage all diseases in our children’s lifetime.” Renowned neuroscientist Cori Bargmann of The Rockefeller University, was named the president of science at CZI.
“With a generation of younger folks who have thrived on the success of their companies, there is a big opportunity for many of us to give back earlier in our lifetime and see the impact of our philanthropic efforts.” Mark Zuckerberg.
Despite all the wealth, Zuckerberg is famous for his passion for driving relatively cheap cars as he was seen driving a car Acura TSX worth less than $30,000 and was also spotted driving a Volkswagen Golf GTI, the car that costs about $30,000. He only owns one sports car Pagani Huayra Italian that he bought in 2014 and priced at about 1.3 million but is not the regular car he drives. He also spends a bit of his money on Family Travel. Zuckerberg and Chan met with the Pope at the Vatican and in 2018 he posted photos of his seventh anniversary celebration with Priscilla Chan at the Parthenon in Athens and in May 20 19 you visited Paris to beat French President Emmanuel macron.
Zuckerberg has been married to Priscilla Chan, a Chinese-American medical student he met at Harvard, since 2012. Zuckerberg has two daughters, Max, born on November 30, 2015, and August, born on August 28, 2017.