Zuckerberg developed an interest in computers at an early age; when he was about 12, he used Atari BASIC to create a messaging program he named "Zucknet."His father used the program in his dental office, so that the receptionist could inform him of a new patient without yelling across the room. The family also used Zucknet to communicate within the house. Together with his friends, he also created computer games just for fun. "I had a bunch of friends who were artists," he said. "They'd come over, draw stuff, and I'd build a game out of it."
To keep up with Mark's burgeoning interest in computers, his parents hired private computer tutor David Newman to come to the house once a week and work with Mark. Newman later told reporters that it was hard to stay ahead of the prodigy, who began taking graduate courses at nearby Mercy College around this same time.
Zuckerberg later studied at Phillips Exeter Academy, an exclusive preparatory school in New Hampshire. There he showed talent in fencing, becoming the captain of the school's team. He also excelled in literature, earning a diploma in classics. Yet Zuckerberg remained fascinated by computers, and continued to work on developing new programs. While still in high school, he created an early version of the music software Pandora, which he called Synapse. Several companies—including AOL and Microsoft—expressed an interest in buying the software, and hiring the teenager before graduation. He declined the offers.
After graduating from Exeter in 2002, Zuckerberg enrolled at Harvard University. By his sophomore year at the ivy league institution, he had developed a reputation as the go-to software developer on campus. It was at that time that he built a program called CourseMatch, which helped students choose their classes based on the course selections of other users. He also invented Facemash, which compared the pictures of two students on campus and allowed users to vote on which one was more attractive. The program became wildly popular, but was later shut down by the school administration after it was deemed inappropriate.
Based on the buzz of his previous projects, three of his fellow students—Divya Narendra, and twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss—sought him out to work on an idea for a social networking site they called Harvard Connection. This site was designed to use information from Harvard's student networks in order to create a dating site for the Harvard elite. Zuckerberg agreed to help with the project, but soon dropped out to work on his own social networking site with friends Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverin.
The Mark Zuckerberg biography started with his birth in White Plains, New York on May 14, 1984. He is the man who many view as the ringleader in the set-up of the social networking site that has spread throughout the world: Facebook. As co-founder, CEO and President of the business, Mark is one of the world's youngest billionaires with an extensive fortune of $4 billion - and he's not even reached his 30th birthday. You could go as far as saying that it is only early days in terms of the story of Mark Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg showed signs of intelligence from an early age, and, in particular, an interest in programming. An unusual hobby it may seem, the New York born Mark found himself spending his spare time developing different kinds of computer programs, with a particular emphasis on communication channels.
One of the early creations of Mark was a music player named Synapse - coordinated using artificial intelligence software to determine the listening habits of users. It was this that first got Zuckerberg recognised by leading companies such as Microsoft, who were intent on hiring him, or, if that failed: buying his program.
Rejecting this to go to the internationally recognised Harvard University - a pivotal moment in the Mark Zuckerberg biography - he was inspired in creating Facebook by the student yearbook from his time spent at Phillips Exeter Academy. And that is when the real story began, the story of Facebook. In Mark's dorm room - shared with co-founders Dustin Moskovitz, Eduardo Saverin and Chris Hughes.
In the initial stages of development the site was purely for students at Harvard, but Zuckerberg and his companions saw the potential for it to become increasingly widespread, and so made the decision to make it available to other students. These were other US universities at first, with the most recognisable being Yale, but again, the site escaped these boundaries until it became the social utility that anyone can sign-up to in today's world.
It is widely accepted that there are many risks associated with entrepreneurship, and Zuckerberg is no stranger to this. Following the launch of the 'News Feed' on September 5th, 2006, many were quick to voice their concerns about people being able to cyberstalk others - something which deserves to an entry in the Mark Zuckerberg biography on the basis that taking chances is something budding entrepreneurs must adapt to.
In May 2007, Mark set-up Facebook platform, something which enables social applications to be created within Facebook and therefore hosts great appeal to developers. Recent statistics show that there are 800,000 active developers using this spin-off service worldwide.
Mark has already achieved what many would be more than satisfied with in a lifetime in little over a quarter of a century. An impressive feat, to say the least, and the exciting thing is that he is expanding his portfolio constantly - hence the regular improvements and changes he makes to the website that has succeeded where others failed: by connecting the world almost seamlessly. It looks as years from now, the Mark Zuckerberg biography will be looked upon as a defining moment in social networking and entrepreneurship history.
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