According to Arie Hasit, Zuckerberg's roommate at the time, "he built the site for fun". A short time later, he created a different program he initially called Facemash that let students select the best-looking person from a choice of photos. In his sophomore year, he wrote a program that he called CourseMatch, which allowed users to make class selection decisions based on the choices of other students and also to help them form study groups. He studied psychology and computer science and belonged to Alpha Epsilon Pi and Kirkland House. The New Yorker noted that by the time Zuckerberg began classes at Harvard in 2002, he had already achieved a "reputation as a programming prodigy".
The device used machine learning to learn the user's listening habits, which was posted to Slashdot and received a rating of 3 out of 5 from PC Magazine. ĭuring Zuckerberg's high-school years, he worked under the company name Intelligent Media Group to build a music player called the Synapse Media Player. Napster co-founder Sean Parker, a close friend, notes that Zuckerberg was "really into Greek odysseys and all that stuff", recalling how he once quoted lines from the Roman epic poem Aeneid, by Virgil, during a Facebook product conference.
They'd come over, draw stuff, and I'd build a game out of it." The New Yorker piece noted that Zuckerberg was not, however, a typical "geek-klutz", as he later became captain of his prep school fencing team and earned a classics diploma. Mark created them." Zuckerberg himself recalls this period: "I had a bunch of friends who were artists. Ī New Yorker profile said of Zuckerberg: "some kids played computer games. It is considered a "primitive" version of AOL's Instant Messenger, which came out the following year.
In one program, since his father's dental practice was operated from their home, he built a software program he called "ZuckNet" that allowed all the computers between the house and dental office to communicate with each other. Zuckerberg took a graduate course in the subject at Mercy College near his home while still in high school. His father taught him Atari BASIC Programming in the 1990s, and later hired software developer David Newman to tutor him privately. Zuckerberg began using computers and writing software in middle school.
On his college application, he stated that he could read and write Ancient Greek, French, Hebrew, and Latin. In his youth, he also attended Johns Hopkins University's Center for Talented Youth summer camp. After two years, he transferred to the private Phillips Exeter Academy and won prizes in astronomy, classical studies, mathematics, and physics. He excelled academically at Ardsley High School in Ardsley, New York. He had a Star Wars-themed bar mitzvah when he turned 13. His great-grandparents were Jewish emigrants from Austria, Germany, and Poland. He and his three sisters (Arielle, businesswoman Randi, and writer Donna) were raised in a Reform Jewish household in Dobbs Ferry, New York. Mark Elliot Zuckerberg was born in White Plains, New York, on May 14, 1984, the son of psychiatrist Karen ( née Kempner) and dentist Edward Zuckerberg.
Since 2008, Time magazine has named Zuckerberg among the 100 most influential people in the world as a part of its Person of the Year award, which he was recognized with in 2010. As of 4 February 2022, Zuckerberg's net worth was $84.8 billion according to the Forbes Real Time Billionaires Index down by $29.7 billion post a decline in Meta Platforms shares leading to the social media giant losing about a fourth of it's market value. In 2007, at age 23, he became the world's youngest self-made billionaire. Zuckerberg took the company public in May 2012 with majority shares. Originally launched to select college campuses, the site expanded rapidly and eventually beyond colleges, reaching one billion users by 2012. Zuckerberg attended Harvard University, where he launched Facebook from his dormitory room in February 2004 with his roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes. He is known for co-founding the social media website Facebook and its parent company Meta (formerly, Facebook, Inc.), of which he is the chairman, chief executive officer, and controlling shareholder.
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg ( / ˈ z ʌ k ər b ɜːr ɡ/ born ( )May 14, 1984) is an American media magnate, internet entrepreneur, and philanthropist.