The 26-year-old Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the social networking site Facbook, Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is tied in 35th place on the list of 400 richest people in the United States of America (USA) after seeing his wealth grow 245 percent to $6.9 billion (£4.4bn) last year.
This indication in contained in a report by Heidi Blake, in the United Kingdom based daily Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk adding that his wealth has been significantly boosted by a $200m (£128m) investment in Facebook by the Russian firm Digital Sky Technologies, whose social networks are market leaders in Europe.
He stated that the young entrepreneur has now surpassed Mr. Jobs whose $6.1bn (£3.9bn) fortune places him 42nd on the list. Though Apple recently exceeded Microsoft in valuation, the lion's share of the CEO's personal wealth comes from his shares in Disney, which bought his Pixar animation studio in 2006 for $7.4bn (£4.7bn).
Mr Zuckerberg's fellow co-founder Dustin Moskovitz is the youngest to make the top 400 as one of 16 new entrants to the list when his $1.4 billion fortune tied him for the 290th place adding that Eduardo Saverin, another co-founder of the social networking site who retains a five per cent stake, is 356th on the list with a fortune of $1.15bn.
Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft Corp, remains at the top of the list of the 400 richest Americans with estimated assets of $54 billion. Mr. Gates was knocked off his perch as the world's richest man by the Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim in March.
Warren Buffett, the investor, remains the second richest man in the US with $45 billion, according to the list which was published recently.
It needs to be pointed out that Mark Elliot Zuckerberg, who was born on May 14, 1984 is an American entrepreneur, he co-founded Facebook with fellow classmates Dustin Moskovitz, Eduardo Saverin, and Chris Hughes while attending Harvard College. He is a billionaire due to his 24% share of Facebook.
Further to that, Zuckerberg was born in White Plains, New York and raised in Dobbs Ferry, New York and his parents are Jewish, but he considers himself an atheist. He started programming when he was in middle school and early on, Zuckerberg enjoyed developing computer programs, especially communication tools and games, before attending Phillips Exeter Academy beginning in his junior year of high school, he went to school at Ardsley High School.
Again, Zuckerberg launched Facebook from his Harvard dormitory room on February 4, 2004 and the idea for Facebook came from his days at Phillips Exeter Academy, which, like most colleges and prep schools, had a long-standing tradition of publishing an annual student directory with headshot photos of students, faculty and staff known as the "Facebook".
Once at college, Zuckerberg's Facebook started off as just a "Harvard thing" until Zuckerberg decided to spread Facebook to other schools, enlisting the help of roommate Dustin Moskovitz. They first spread it to Stanford, Dartmouth, Columbia, New York University, Cornell, Brown and Yale, and then to other schools with social contacts with Harvard.
Zuckerberg moved to Palo Alto, California, with Moskovitz and some friends and there they leased a small house that served as an office. Over the summer, Zuckerberg met Peter Thiel who invested in the company. They got their first office during the summer of 2004 and according to Zuckerberg, the group planned to return to Harvard in the fall but eventually decided to remain in California.
0 comments:
Post a Comment