Mark Zuckerberg is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Facebook (FB). Here’s how he built the vastly successful social media business.
While many intelligent people attend Harvard University, Mark Zuckerberg became known quickly as the go-to computer programmer on campus. By his sophomore year, he had already built two programs: Course Match and Face Mash. Both programs became wildly popular, but the university shut down the latter program after it was deemed to be inappropriate.
Based on his acclaim on campus, Zuckerberg partnered with friends to create a social networking site that allowed Harvard students to connect with each other. The site officially went live in June 2004 under the name “The Facebook,” and Zuckerberg ran it out of his dorm room.
After Zuckerberg and his partner Eduardo Saverin realized that there were already 4,000 users registered on Facebook, they came to the conclusion that they needed services of new programmers. One of them was Mark’s neighbor, Darren Moskowitz, who further opened the Facebook service to students at Columbia University, Stanford, and Yale.
Around the same time, after the IPO, Zuckerberg owned 503.6 million shares. And now Zuckerberg controls nearly 60% of the company’s votes, 35% – Eduardo Saverin, and 5% went to the newcomer Moskowitz. Another friend of Mark, Chris Hughes, was assigned as the Press Attache of Facebook.
According to Forbes, Mark Zuckerberg has a net worth of $63.5 billion since July 30, 2018.
When it comes to influencing, Zuckerberg has signed the Giving Pledge, which way he will donate at least 50% of his net worth to philanthropic cause previous to he dies. In 2010, for example, he donated more than $100 million to save the Newark school system in New Jersey.
In April 2018, Zuckerberg testified earlier than Congress after it was made known that the company had shared users’ data with the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytical. Forbes has credited the quick drop of Face book’s stock price following the company’s July caution to the investor of slowing increase and profit margins to the growing impact of the battle between profit & privacy, citing the Cambridge Analytics story and Face book’s growing inability to protect users from harmful misuse and misinformation.
Facebook made most of it earnings through contextual ads on it pages, they also turned the time each user spends on the platform into revenue.
Facebook made almost 85% of it revenue through it contextual ads while the remaining 15% is said to be made through deductions gotten from payments made through the platform.
In 2013 Facebook had an idea of a way to generate more income, it was through direct messaging. They are said to be testing a new service that charges you $1 for every message you send to someone that not in your friends list.
For example you wanted to send a message to Barrack Obama or Kim Kardashian, you would be charged $1 and your message is gonna be delivered to their inbox. (That would be really goo)
But they said that some of this people are worth more that $1 and therefore the price is gonna vary for different people. Mind you, this service was just a test.
