Noone can possibly know social media with ‘not-knowing’ Mark Zuckerberg.
His brainchild Facebook has happened and is happening. And after its inception in 2004, the website has almost been monopolistic for its industry.
Today, arguably this mammoth company (the one having a profile count even more than the earth’s total population) is a name synonymous with our day-to-day digital life.
And we all know how Mark started…
(*cough… The Social Net… something.. cough*)
Alright, but there has to be something more. Like, he wasn’t born at college right? Where are his real roots?
Let’s dig deeper now and see whether we can find any inspiration.
Mark was born at New York and belonged to Edward Zuckerberg, a humble dentist at New York. But unlike his father, he was highly involved in computer science and visual effects from his very childhood.
I REMEMBER MARK WHEN HE WAS FIVE OR SO… HE WAS DOING SOMETHING WITH A FLOPPY DISK. I THOUGHT HE WAS PLAYING AROUND, BUT NO… HE WAs TRYING TO DISSECT THE DISC. WHEN I ASKED, HE SAID ‘I AM JUST TRYIN’ TO SEE WHAT’s REALLY INSIDE THIS THING.’ Yes, OUR boy was CUrIOUS at tech right since ever!
-Edward Zuckerberg.
At his high school, he friended a group of artists and built an entire video game on his own. His talent was extraordinary at computers. When he was introduced to the internet at an age of sixteen, he called it a miniature of what it’s really capable of.
As one of his school teachers recall-
SOME KIDS PLAYED COMPUTER GAMES. MARK BUILT THEM.
Mark began started writing computer programs from his middle school. His father coached him on Atari Basics in the 1990s, and later hired David Newman, a software developer, to teach him further.
It was so tough staying ahead of him. Mark was a prodigy.
-Newman
Mark also took a graduate course in Computer Sciences at Mercy College.
He loved developing computer programs, especially the software for communication purposes and video games.
-Adam De’Angelo, Mark’s best friend from high school.
One such remarkable software was Zuknet. This software let other computers in the house to be interconnected due to which his father worked seamlessly at the office while not going all disconnected from home. It is thus called a “primitive” version for the likes of Apple I-sync, AOL’s IM and Nimbuzz.
Later in high school, Mark made a music software on machine language called Slashdot, which could read user data to interpret his listening behavior.
This had become viral. PC Magazine rated it 3 out of 5. And then with a scholarship, Mark went to Harvards where he (dated, broke up, drunk, hacked the Harvard’s over-secured online campus facebook to create face mash, got suspended, dropped out and) found Facebook in 2004.
Rest of everything was a history that still is in progress.
MARK’s JUST A NORMAL man GREAT CAPABILITIES FOR COMPUTERS. He was not born with a SILVeR spoon down his ThROAT.
BUT, HE WAS too FUTURISTIC AND UNCONVENTIONAL to stay a mediocre.
– Sean Parker, a close friend of Mark Zuckerberg, Founder of Napster.
