Mark Zuckerberg Net Worth – How He Built it Up
Mark Zuckerberg is one of the most famous entrepreneurs in the world today. He is so famous that a movie has been made about him and what he has done. He is also one of youngest billionaires on the planet. Mark Zuckerberg net worth today is $69 billion, making him the fifth richest man on the planet.
The Birth of Facebook
According to Biography.com, Mark Zuckerberg was born May 14, 1984, in White Plains, New York to a well-to-do upper middle-class family. His father was Edward Zuckerberg who ran dental a practice attached to their home. His mother was Karen Zuckerberg who was a psychiatrist prior their four children – Mark, Randi, Donna and Arielle – being born. Zuckerberg did extremely well in school, proving himself to be a boy-genius with a talent for computers and software programming. He was so talented that AOL and Microsoft wanted to buy the software he created (a music software called Synapse, which is an earlier version of the Pandora music software). They even offered him a job in their companies. The teenager declined both offers.
The boy genius then joined Harvard University, where he became known as the go-to guy for all things software. It was when he was in Harvard that three other students, Divya Narendra and Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss – twins – approached Zuckerberg to work on a social networking site that they were going to call Harvard Connection. It was basically to be an online Harvard dating website. However, midway through the project, Zuckerberg dropped out to team up with his friends Dustin Moskovitz, Eduardo Saverin and Chris Hughes to create their own social networking site. This site allowed users to create profiles, upload pictures and communicate with other people. It was launched in June of 2004 and was first called The Facebook.
Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard in his sophomore year to devote all his time to developing this new social networking site. He opened a new office in Palo Alto, and by 2004, Facebook had more than 1 million users. In the beginning the social networking site was only available to ivy-league students. However, the company then opened up the site to colleges, schools and international schools, taking the user base to more than 5.5 million.
Growing Pains – Facebook
The social networking website continued to grow, getting a huge capital investment injection in 2005 from venture capital company Accel Partners. The venture capitalist invested $12.7 million in the growing network, which helped the company expand even more. Things seemed only to be going up for Facebook and its co-founder. Mark Zuckerberg net worth touched the $1 million mark in 2006. He was 22 years old and had just opened up Facebook to everyone. All seemed right with the world.
And that’s when the young entrepreneur faced his first hurdle. His old college mates, the ones who create Harvard Connection, sued him for stealing their idea and using it to set up Facebook. Incriminating instant messages showed that they were right. An initial settlement of $65 million was agreed upon, however, Narendra and the Winklevoss twins continued their fight till 2011, saying the value of the stock was much more than just $65 million.
Then in 2009, the young CEO faced another challenge. Ben Mezrich wrote a book called The Accidental Billionaires, which was supposedly the story of how Facebook was created. Mezrich was strongly criticized for the book, with Zuckerberg accusing him of using invented scenes and fictional characters. Despite all the pushback, Mezrich sold the story to screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, which led to the creation of The Social Network, which received 8 Academy Award nominations.
Mark Zuckerberg net worth growth
By 2010, Zuckerberg was already a billionaire. And in 2011, he broke into the Forbes 400 list, coming in at number 14. Mark Zuckerberg net worth was now $17.5 billion. His skyrocketing market worth had already made him richer than legends such as Apple Inc.’s Steve Jobs, Google’s Sergey Brin, Dell’s founder Michael Dell and even Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer. Then, in May 2012, Facebook went public, breaking records once again by becoming the largest ever technology IPO in US history. The company offered more than 421.23 billion shares priced at $38 per share. This IPO raised $16.007 billion and also took the Mark Zuckerberg net worth through the roof. He joined the top 10 list of richest men alive.
Facebook stocks continued to rise over the years, despite controversy dogging the company. Since its inception, the social media giant has been accused to violating its users’ data privacy. These accusations reached their peak in March 2018, when it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica had used personal information from more than 50 million Facebook users to influence the 2016 US Presidential Elections – without their knowledge. Things got even worse for the social media platform after Facebook admitted that about 87 million users’ information may have been stolen.
Till the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke, Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth had gone up to more than $79 billion. However, since then, billions have been shaved off his net worth taking it to a current figure of $63.3 billion. He has fallen from being the fifth richest man alive to being the 7th richest man alive.
Philanthropy
Despite all his troubles, Mark Zuckerberg as well as his wife, Priscilla Chan have decided to use almost 99% of their Facebook shares for the greater good of mankind through the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. In 2010, Mark Zuckerberg joined the group of billionaires who signed The Giving Pledge, promising to donate 50% of his wealth to charitable initiatives. Zuckerberg didn’t just stop there. Since he became a billionaire, he has used his money to fund a variety of charitable causes. He broke records by donating $100 million for the rehabilitation of the Newark Public School system in New Jersey. Zuckerberg and his wife have also donated more than $3 billion to research to help cure, prevent and manage all diseases for their children’s lifetimes.
Mark and Priscilla Zuckerberg were in fact named the most generous couple under the age of 40 for 2013.
