https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mark-Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg is arguably one of the most successful young entrepreneurs there has been. He is the founder and CEO of Facebook which he started in 2004 and is a social media app that has gained a wide following and has become widely popular over the years. Zuckerberg started this business while he was attending college at Harvard University and had seen it quickly gain popularity considering that half of the student body had signed up for thefacebook.com (which what it was originally called before he changed it to Facebook). Facebook differed from other social media networks in the sense that the information input into it had to be real (it was a trustworthy source) and that it had a large focus on networking. In 2005 they had received their first venture capital of $12.7 million. In 2007 Facebook made a deal with Microsoft (after rejecting a deal with Yahoo) and they had a 1.6% stake of the company for $240 million and in 2009, Facebook made a deal with Digital Sky Technologies that had a 1.96% of the company for $200 million. The business has grown so much that its current estimated net worth resides at about $527 billion. As of 2020, there is an estimated total of about 2.7 billion active monthly users on Facebook which is a substantial number when considering that the world population is about 7.6 billion. While I personally am not a member of Facebook because I prefer other social medias, almost everyone I know is and I am aware of its mark on the world. However, I have recently watched the documentary on Netflix called “The Social Dilemma” and there are a lot of points in it that describe why social media is harmful and the truth behind what actually goes on at big technology and social media companies. That being said, they discuss Facebook a LOT and it makes me question whether it is a beneficial platform for people or if it is harming them in ways they cannot even comprehend or are aware of.
It was really interesting to read about the start of Facebook! It was especially interesting to read about how it differed from other forms of social media at the time. I also enjoyed reading about it’s growth, past it’s start and how it got to be as big as it is now.
I also agree with you that it will be interesting to see the long-term impacts of living in a time so driven by social media, like Facebook.