Some consider him a symbol of his generation, a genius, and others not so much, but what is undeniable is that mark zuckerberghero or villain, is highly recognized worldwide.
The American businessman without a doubt sparked a revolution on the internet since, despite the harsh criticism and controversy that has been unleashed in recent years, Facebook continues to be the leader among the worldwide.
Seventeen years after his greatest creation, this young billionaire has managed to “connect the world”, and although there is a great debate about his practices, the reality is that his business vision, as well as the impact it has achieved in technological terms will be difficult to match.
Mark Zuckerberg story: what has he done to accumulate so much money
born in 1984 (oh, if George Orwell lifted his head…) In a city near New York, Mark Zuckerberg’s meteoric rise to the Olympus of mega-millionaires began when he was studying at Harvard. In this video you can discover a little more about his pre-university stage:
There he launched Facemash, the predecessor of Facebook, a directory of University students, in which the most liked photos could be rated. This got him into trouble with Harvard management, who accused him of illegally accessing servers and violating student privacy by using their photos without his permission.
Why Mark Zuckerberg Created Facebook
Come on, with the issue of privacy, the boy pointed out ways. With the help of his roommates (who later accused him of stealing their idea, as told in the film The social network) started working on a portal to connect students, but at the same time developed and ended up launching a portal called thefacebook.com whose objective was that Harvard students could have a space in which to exchange opinions and experiences.
This portal quickly expanded to all Ivy League universities, at which point Zuckerberg decided to drop out. From there the idea begins to attract the attention of people like Sean Parker, founder of Napster, that helped shape it, he eliminated the “the” to stay only on Facebook and in one of those ironies of life, he was suddenly expelled the following year after being arrested for possession of cocaine.
But Facebook had already gained a run and was ready to take off. Today, with more than 2.7 billion of users, Facebook is the social network par excellence. His death has been predicted dozens of times. Social networks that were called to be “the new Facebook” have been born, grown and died, while Mark Zuckerberg’s social network has stood firm and has achieved what most have not been able to do: generate income.
How much money does Mark Zuckerberg have?
Currently, Mark Zuckerberg ranks sixth among the richest people in the world according to data from , by accumulating no less than 117,000 million dollars (although his assets faced a significant loss in 2021). This large amount is equivalent to 0.618% of the GDP of the United States: something like 1.53% of the total fortune of the 500 richest people in the world of this listing.
Although Zuckerberg receives a symbolic salary of one dollar a year, his fortune continues to amass thanks to the actions of Facebook. One of those that, however, continue to exist successfully.
Mark Zuckerberg’s story: keys to Facebook’s success
1. From the beginning Facebook opened up to third-party developers
This allowed the development of third-party applications, especially games. Who hasn’t been invited to play Candy Crush, Mafia Wars or received messages to join the many various animal farms?
2. Facebook has managed to evolve like no other social network
From the numerous changes in privacy management to in the event of attacks or catastrophes, including Facebook, it has shown that it is capable of listening to its users and adapting to all their needs.
3. Facebook has critical mass to be profitable advertising.
Mark Zuckerberg has shown that he is concerned about the monetization of Facebook, which is why he has been developing different advertising formats and services so that companies can contact their customers, systems that other large social networks implemented later. Facebook has been concerned to make room for companies and not allowing them to break the privacy of their users, at least without their consent.
4. Mark Zuckerberg has a clear goal: to be the social network of reference
And that is something that the shareholders thank him for. Its IPO was an event enthusiastically welcomed by the market, and although, as we said, it has had to face a loss of approximately 5,900 million dollars after the collapse of the Wall Street markets during 2021, its profits did not they are not negligible.
Buying WhatsApp or Instagram reinforced its position in networks that, although they were not direct competition, they could tickle him and that today they are seen as complementary services, but not substitutes, for Facebook. And all thanks to a principle expressed by Mark Zuckerberg himself: “What matters is not what we want to know about people, but what people want to know about themselves.”
Not even the almighty Google has been able to stand up to Mark Zuckerberg when it comes to social networks. Google+ was a resounding failure that has remained in the graveyard of Google, and anyone who pretends to be the “new Facebook” today, arouses fits of hilarity in potential investors, who simply pat the crazy person on the back. entrepreneur who comes up with such a thing, while they think “poor thing, the one with the cakes you’re going to take away”. Of course, There are many things to criticize on Facebook.
The limp management of privacy, the fact that retain universal and permanent rights to all content you post (if tomorrow you see your face in a Coca-Cola advertisement, saying “a little boy likes it” you know that you have signed a consent for it), his collaboration with the massive espionage of the American NSA, or his excessive puritanism with the subject of the photos (a mother breastfeeding her child is an immoral photo for Facebook, a tit comes out, holy God!), among others, have made Facebook’s reputation not live its best hours in recent years.
But that does not prevent Facebook from being part of the lives of the vast majority of those who read this post. And that must be for something. In the end, this guy with the look of nerd, with his sweatshirts and his sneakers he has eaten the world, and he has done it without being a “serial entrepreneur” or other nonsense. He (presumably) had an idea, the idea was a good one and he stuck with it to the end. He did not consider his business as “I am going to grow until Google wants to buy me” or other things that are still, unfortunately, in the minds of many.
The philanthropic donation to Bill Gates
Despite the controversy that surrounds him, Zuck has a positive background: in 2015 the news jumped to the media around the world: Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan They announced that to a foundation with philanthropic purposes: the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
This donation, valued at $45 billion at Facebook’s stock price at the time of the donation, is one of the largest donations ever made. and will take effect gradually over the lifetime of Mark Zuckerberg and his wife. The decision was communicated by both through Facebook (obviously) coinciding with the announcement of the birth of the couple’s first daughter, Max Chan.
It is not the first time that Mark Zuckerberg has carried out philanthropic actions. He has already made substantial donations encrypted in more than 1,600 million dollars for the fight against Ebola and leads, through its foundation, the most disadvantaged countries and areas of the world.
With this step forward, Mark Zuckerberg joined the club of the world’s greatest philanthropists, undoubtedly inspired by the path already traveled by two old acquaintances of his: Bill and Melinda Gates, with whom he maintains a close relationship and who announced a similar donation a few years ago. Be that as it may, his act of philanthropy honors him, and we should applaud him for it. However, like any megacorporation, Facebook also has its dark side.
Last years of controversies
The arrival of the pandemic, without a doubt, came to highlight the tremendous potential of electronic commerce. It was not something alien to Facebook, which had already taken its first steps in the marketplace world, and since then it has strengthened its attempts to offer its users all the facilities to sell online. To give an example, let us remember that this same year payments through links and QRs reached the platform. It is just a sample of what we pointed out before: the ability of Mark Zuckerberg and his team to detect certain needs or trends in the market, and to materialize them in their “emporium” of social networks.
Based on this, a frequent practice of the company has always been to copy tools or functionalities from other platforms. Without going any further, in April 2021, Facebook announced , a new tool to boost the consumption of podcasts and tackle Clubhouse.
But the idea did not always work out for him, and this led to litigation on numerous occasions, such as the one experienced with : Facebook launched Facebook Lasso, a clone of TikTok which was intended to attract a younger audience and thus deal with the new social network. But this meant Zuckerberg and forced him to close his new beach bar.
Because of these and other sometimes wrong decisions, the truth is that in recent years Zuckerberg has stood out more for the controversies than for any other type of news. Let us recall, for example, the scandal of the Cambridge Analytics: Millions of profiles on the social network were collected to set up ideological profiles that would help orchestrate political campaigns. Closest in time, early 2020, George Soros published a controversial opinion piece in New York Times, in which he hinted at some collusion between Zuckerberg and Donald Trump. Criticism rained down, of course.
It also brought cola , which months ago publicly revealed how the speeches of Facebook and Instagram, beyond the ethical, feed hate speech and they have a negative impact on the mental health of, mainly, adolescents. The millionaire businessman denied the majority in this regard, but the doubt was sown.
And if we add to this a demand of 69 million dollars for allegedly violating an order imposed by the competition regulator in the Giphy purchase operation, since the controversy is more than served.
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