UPDATED 08:00 EDT / MAY 23 2012

The Best of Mark Zuckerberg

There’s nothing unusual about his emergence as the youngest billionaire in the world. Worth $17.5 billion as of March 2012, Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, is the 35th richest men on Forbes’ list. He was also named Person of the Year in 2010 by Time magazine.

Many experts say Zuckerberg deserves the position because he planned it, dreamed it and worked it out. He focused on his mission on making Facebook the number one social network in the world.

Facebook became a public company on May 18, 2012, and the first American company to debut in NASDAQ with a valuation above $100 billion. It was another big success for Zuckerberg’s influence on the social network that has changed the way people relate to one another.

During the early days of Facebook inception he said,

“When you give everyone a voice and give people power, the system usually ends up in a really good place. So, what we view our role as, is giving people that power. By giving people the power to share, we’re making the world more transparent.”

Surprising Zuckerberg facts

Mark Zuckerberg started “Thefacebook” because he wanted one online directory where all students could be listed at Harvard University.

Zuckerberg didn’t like the concept of putting banner ads on the site. He rented a house near Stanford after he dropped out from the university and to cover the cost of staff and running the site, he started looking into other advertising systems.

“We hate banner ads…lately we’ve been putting thought into other advertising systems that would be less offensive.  Right now we put up what we need…it’s not that cheap — we have to make $40,000 a month or something, but it works,” he said.

In 2011, Mark Zuckerberg tops the ranking of the 100 most powerful media person published by the Guardian newspaper, ahead of Rupert Murdoch, Larry Page and Steve Jobs.

Zuckerberg now owns roughly 28 percent of Facebook. By Facebook’s current valuation, he’s richer by another $24 billion.

With the current asset valuation of Facebook, the entire GDP of Afghanistan ($17.9 billion), Nepal ($18.3 billion) and Jamaica ($14.7 billion) is lower than Zuckerberg’s company market value. In addition, the entire earnings of the porn industry of the US (at $10 billion) is also lower than Mark Zuckerberg’s current value.

Moreover, the combined salaries of all NBA ($2.09 billion), MLB ($2.9 billion) and NFL ($3 billion) players is smaller than Mark Zuckerberg’s worth. And U.S. video game sales for 2011 were estimated at about $17 billion, still smaller than the assets under Zuckerberg.  Comparatively, at 28 Bill Gates had earned just $100 million, about $23 billion less than Zuckerberg’s worth at the same age.

Indeed, at 28 Zuckerberg is exactly half the age of the average S&P 500 CEO, but the IPO offering makes his company worth more than iconic companies such as Disney, Ford and Kraft Foods.

On a personal front, Zuckerberg doesn’t own a T.V. and he doesn’t like public gatherings, especially if he has to make a speech.

His friends on Facebook have access to his e-mail address and his cell-phone number. Zuckerberg has granted them access to browse his photograph albums, including the one titled “The Great Goat Roast of 2009.”

He’s like an addict when it comes to programming, and works like robot. More often than not he would stay awake, coding for days when he started the social network.

“I keep programmer time sometimes…programmers tend to stay up really late and work when everyone else is asleep. So it’s not really uncommon for me to stay up until 6 or 8 in the morning,” said Zuckerberg. “But the business world does not operate between 5 pm and 8 am, so that requires some waking up for.”

The lighter side of Mark

On the eve of Facebook’s IPO, Mark Zuckerberg published an unusual witty letter to potential investors.

“For years, you’ve wasted your time on Facebook.  Now here’s your chance to waste your money on it, too,” Zuckerberg said. “Facebook is the most successful social network in the world, enabling millions to share information of no interest with people they barely know.”

He continued, “Every time someone clicks on a Facebook ad, Facebook makes money.  And while no one has ever done this on purpose, millions have done it by mistake while drunk.  We totally stole this idea from iTunes.”

“Finally, if you invest in Facebook, you’ll be far from alone.  As a result of using Facebook for the past few years, over 900 million people in the world have suffered mild to moderate brain damage, impairing their ability to make reasoned judgments.  These will be your fellow Facebook investors.”

And some most interesting things about Zuckerberg have appeared on various social media sites with the full intend of headlining Zuckerberg’s life. On the day of IPO, CDZA music wrote a musical that’s all about Mark Zuckerberg (see below).

Mark Zuckerberg and Sean Parker made this music video about the history and future of Facebook just before the IPO.

And here are some more funny videos, including Facebook in Real Life, and The Social Network Parody Movie.

 


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