Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (1)

Mark Elliot Zuckerberg was born in 1984 in White Plains, New York. He is the son of Karen (née Kempner), a psychiatrist, and Edward Zuckerberg, a dentist. He listed the following non-English languages that he could read and write: French, Hebrew, Latin, and ancient Greek) and was a fencing star and captain of the fencing team. Zuckerberg began using computers and writing software as a child in middle school. By the time he began classes at Harvard, he had already achieved a "reputation as a programming prodigy". In his sophomore year, he wrote a program he called CourseMatch, which allowed users to make class selection decisions based on the choices of other students and also to help them form study groups. A short time later, he created a different program he initially called Facemash that let students select the best looking person from a choice of photos.

They had books called Face Books, which included the names and pictures of everyone who lived in the student dorms. At first, he built a site and placed two pictures, or pictures of two males and two females. Visitors to the site had to choose who was "hotter" and according to the votes there would be a ranking. Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard in his sophomore year to complete his project He launched Facebook from his Harvard dormitory room on February 4, 2004.

Once at college, Zuckerberg's Facebook started off as just a "Harvard thing" until Zuckerberg decided to spread it to other schools, enlisting the help of roommate Dustin Moskovitz. Zuckerberg moved to Palo Alto, California, with Moskovitz and some friends. 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 in mid-2004. According to Zuckerberg, the group planned to return to Harvard but eventually decided to remain in California. They had already turned down offers by major corporations to buy out Facebook.