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Mark Zuckerberg

Born May 1984

Estimated Wealth £11billion*

Source: Internet - Primarily Facebook

Overview

Mark Elliot Zuckerberg was born on the 14th May 1984 and raised in Dobbs Ferry, in the state of New York. His father ran a successful dental practice whilst his mother was a psychiatrist prior to the birth of Mark and his 3 siblings.

His interest in computers and in particular programming came to light at a young age, with the creation of instant messaging system that his father employed in his business, in addition to computer games based on friends drawings. Mark’s talent led to his parents hiring a private computer tutor to mentor his promising skills and whilst at high school he was already attracting interest from AOL and Microsoft.

Mark wished to pursue his education and enrolled at Harvard University, where his reputation within the college as a promising developer flourished after a range of projects which ultimately led to the co-creation of “The Facebook”.

As Facebook began to grow, Mark decided to drop out of Harvard in order to dedicate more time developing the site and by the end of 2004 it had reached the 1 million user mark. Investment from venture capitalist group Accel Partners propelled the site forward and its expansion became exponential.

Facebook now has over 800 million users world-wide, and its continually growing. As the number of members increases so does the advertising potential, where the estimated revenue for 2011 alone is expected to exceed $4 billion.

Business Location

The headquarters remains in a transition stage with a move to Menlo Park, California. This is within close proximity to their original location in Palo Atlo and forms part of the Silicon Valley, synonymous with some of the world’s largest technological companies.

In addition to the US headquarters, Facebook has also joined a host of tech companies including Google, Yahoo, Amazon and eBay in setting up international offices in Dublin, Ireland. Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg described the talent pool in Dublin as “world-class” and that “recruiting local talent will help us better understand the needs of local users and the regional dynamics”. Perhaps the location decision was also influenced by the leniency of Irish tax laws where the possibility of reducing payable income tax proved irresistible.

Something you perhaps didn’t know…

Mark is reportedly red/green colour blind, perhaps the reason for Facebook being primarily blue.

Next Week: Sir Philip Green

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*According to Forbes.com –as of November 2011

Image attributed to Guillaume Paumier

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Published by AlecR on Tuesday, 15 November 2011 at 5:26 PM