There are some technologies and services that are so engrained in our lives and culture that we cannot imagine life without them. Facebook—the home of everything from shared memories to angry rants—would undoubtedly fall into this category. Mark Zuckerberg, the inventor of Facebook, was a successful young entrepreneur from whom we can learn a lot. In this blog, we will look at Mark Zuckerberg’s earlier life, how he founded Facebook, and his success since then.

Zuckerberg grew up in a New York Jewish family. In Zuckerberg’s younger years, he not only excelled in his academics but also had a distinct innovative prowess. The young entrepreneur would look for problems and creatively solve them—his solutions often being far ahead of his time. During middle school, Zuckerberg began learning basic computer programming from his father, who later hired a private programming tutor for Zuckerberg. In addition to designing video games for his friends, Zuckerberg—age 11—built a program called ZuckNet for his father’s dental practice. The program, which operated like a proto version of AOL’s Instant Messenger, connected his father’s office and home computers, enabling communication between his offices. In high school, Zuckerberg used his creative savvy to invent Synapse Media Player under the brand Intelligent Media Group. Frustrated by his music playlists stopping, Zuckerberg’s software would suggest and play songs based on a listener’s music tastes. Both Microsoft and AOL approached Zuckerberg asking to buy the software, though Zuckerberg turned down their offers.

Zuckerberg’s entrepreneurial outlook as a young person led him to become one of the most successful businessmen and CEOs in the United States. While Zuckerberg was enrolled at Harvard University studying computer science, he continued to design innovative software systems. In his sophomore year of college, he developed thefacebook.com, a social network for students at Harvard. His program caught on quickly and was soon expanded to students at other universities as well. In 2004, Zuckerberg moved to California and dropped out of school to focus on expanding his new company. By 2006, anyone with an email address could use the platform. The popularity of thefacebook.com—now Facebook, Inc.—kept growing, to the point where it currently has 223 million active users, employs almost 60,000 people, and generated $85.9 billion in revenue in 2020. According to Forbes’ 2021 ranking, Zuckerberg is the fifth richest man in the world, having a net worth of $97 billion.

In Zuckerberg’s words, “People think innovation is just having a good idea, but a lot of it is just moving quickly and trying a lot of new things.” The young Zuckerberg did this well. Not being satisfied with merely learning about things, Zuckerberg strove to put what he learned into practice. When he saw a problem, he used his skills to solve that problem. Zuckerberg’s innovative foresight was admired even by the leaders in the software and technological fields and led to him developing a world-shaping company, Facebook. For the young entrepreneur reading this: don’t be afraid to give your ideas a try! As Zuckerberg said, “The biggest risk is not taking any risk… the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.”