Business: Personality of Mark Zuckerberg - Case Study Example

Introduction to Business – Mark Zuckerberg Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is one of the richest persons on earth. He is the founder of Facebook and currentlyholds the positions of CEO and President within this giant social networking website. Mark Zuckerberg was born in 1984 in New York, USA and is currently merely 25 years old. He is an American billionaire and one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the history of business. He co-founded Facebook with his Harvard colleagues Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. His life is filled with adventures that he has had ever since he founded Facebook and the type of culture that he has developed within his company. He is one of the youngest billionaires within America and indeed the entire world. His wealth has been exponentially increasing since he has hit the nail on the head by launching Facebook – a website that is loved by millions worldwide. Mark Zuckerberg is a success story because he has made things happen, and that too consistently. He set off on his mission ever since he was a student at the Harvard University. His mission therefore was to connect university alumni and on-campus students with one another. He was very successful at doing so and later on this expanded to different users who were not a part of the American universities and colleges. The commercial activities increased and so did the user base which suggested that there are a lot of laurels still waiting to be unleashed for Mark Zuckerberg. Mark Zuckerberg is hailed by Time magazine as being one of the most influential people on the face of this earth, back in 2008. He was ranked at number 52 out of 101 people, which suggests the stature that he has made for his own self in the recent times. His net worth is $2 billion which is indeed one of the more high-end business earnings which can be understood in this day and age (Brusilovsky 2009). Mark Zuckerberg is an Atheist by religious beliefs. He was born in a Jewish family in New York. He spent his early childhood in New York as well. He had a passion to do programming and his middle school years were spent doing the same. He had a knack of developing computer programs which included a host of communication tools as well as games. His early education was at Ardsley High School and later on he went to Phillips Exeter Academy. During his stay at the academy, he helped devise a program which would assist the workers in his father’s office to interact with one another (Arrington 2009). He also built a high tech version of the game called Risk as well as a music player which was titled Synapse. Synapse employed usage of artificial intelligence technology to understand and decipher the habits of the users which were concerned with the learning traits. Both AOL and Microsoft wanted to purchase Synapse but Mark Zuckerberg decided not to sell it to anyone. He made his decision to pursue his studies at the Harvard University. Mark Zuckerberg is a name to reckon with, as far as the business entrepreneurs in the present day and age are concerned. This is because he has made a name for himself, which is difficult to replicate by anyone. However people can attempt to come close to what his aura has become in the recent years, but this is a reality that Mark Zuckerberg is indeed one of the most sought after names in the business and networking industries. He founded Facebook in 2004. He was sitting in his Harvard dorm room when he decided to launch it. He brought in the idea from his academy days when he adopted the long-standing conventional norm of having an alumni montage that basically took into account their head shots. It was named “Facebook” and hence came the name for this giant that was waiting to be unleashed. This was an annual student directory and contained bios of all students with their pictures (only head shots) as well as the faculty and staff. Since Mark Zuckerberg launched his own version of Facebook, he decided to keep it very secluded (just for Harvard students). Later on, he decided to spread Facebook to other schools, colleges and universities as well. However he had to seek facilitation for the same from his roommate Dustin Moskovitz. Their initial network spanned universities like the Stanford, Yale, Dartmouth, Cornell and Columbia. However after this it took its basis towards schools that had social linkages with the Harvard University (McGirt 2007). After this, Mark Zuckerberg moved on to California with his friends. They wanted to set something up so that Facebook could be the next big thing. They leased a small place which was going to be their initial office. Peter Thiel invested in the company after Mark Zuckerberg was able to convince him that Facebook would be an immense success. The summer of 2004 saw the launch of the official Facebook. Even though the friends wanted to come back to the Harvard University in the fall, they decided against it. They wanted to spend some more time in California. Because of this, Mark Zuckerberg has still been unable to return to Harvard as his professional commitments have increased immensely. He is now the youngest billionaire in the last few years and his journey has not finished yet. He knows this is just the beginning and that he has to achieve a lot in the coming days and years (Author Unknown 2009). This indeed is the story of evolution of a young man who made it to the best known places within the business world due to his talent and the hard work that he had planned for his own self. With the assistance of a few loyal friends, Mark Zuckerberg was able to turn around things quickly and without a short span of 5 years, he stands as one of the most successful people in the world, undoubtedly. Credit needs to be given to the ones who have been close to him all this while since they have supported him immensely well. Some 5 years back, he had no car, no house and indeed no job at all. He turned around things quickly. Now he is one of the most sought after names in the business and networking regimes. He has already escaped a moment when he was close to getting killed. It happened when he was on his way to celebrate with his friends at the East Bay. His car pulled down and he stopped by at the nearest gas station. But soon after a man appeared, who seemingly looked drunk. Mark Zuckerberg quickly ran away since this man had ulterior motives. He believes he was given a fresh lease of life that day. This took place in the spring of 2005 as he was enroute to Berkeley from Palo Alto. His life has since been on an upward road. An employee spilled the beans as far as this gun saga of Mark Zuckerberg is concerned. He has witnessed adventures during the course of his life time and has enjoyed each and every moment. He recalls that his life is more on the lines of a movie script – one that happens in a very filmy way. He was always a high-tech boy who wanted to learn new things in the field of science and technology. The manner in which Microsoft and AOL ran after him made him realize that he was doing something really well (Vogelstein 2007). He dropped out of college as he believed in his skills and nurtured his own thing (Facebook), which eventually turned out to be a huge success. Facebook has always emerged stronger than ever. Whenever there has been a change within the technological facets of Facebook, there has been a huge backlash by its users all around the world. However the resentment soon dies down since Mark Zuckerberg has all ends covered in a very sound way. He knows how to downplay people’s emotions and he has done it quite a few times during Facebook’s 5 year history. The disappearing act of the News Feed and the Privacy Policy getting revamped are just some of the things that have stirred controversy over the years, but Mark Zuckerberg has had a solid strategy under his aegis to turn things around in a very effective way. He has always devised plans which would mesh well with the ways and mannerisms of the people. Even though people have shown their dissatisfaction over Facebook’s ever-changing features and policies, they have more or less grown stronger by the day and remained struck on the website, which is a very encouraging sign for not only Mark Zuckerberg but the entire Facebook crew. Such is Mark Zuckerberg’s belief in his thing (Facebook) that he has turned down Yahoo’s offer of $1 billion as it intended to buy the rights of Facebook from Mark Zuckerberg. Similarly Viacom had earlier approached Mark Zuckerberg with an offer of $750 million which was also turned down. Silicon Valley has these news and reports as there is a lot of buzz within the related domains. It would be correct to state that Mark Zuckerberg has made a name of his own within the global world of technology and business domains. Because of this, he has been able to have quite a positive notion about his personality. The youngsters look up to him as a role model, who brought richness and fame to his shores through talent and hard work. More than that he has been lucky during his stint as the founder and ultimately the CEO and President of Facebook. His fans have increased with the advent of time and this is apparent through his numerous fan pages that have been set up on the Internet, and not to forget, on Facebook itself. He puts on Adidas sandals, a baggy khakis, a sweatshirt, eats breakfast cereals, still resides in a rented apartment, which has a mattress placed on the floor and his room just has a couple of chairs as furniture with a table added to them as well. He either uses his bike to the office or goes walking. Such is his lifestyle that people envy him immensely. He is a teenager who has a head of a 50 year old mature person, one who is running such a giant company, yet lives in a very cool, calm and collected manner. He has changed people’s beliefs about the best known faces on earth. He wants to do things differently yet he remains simple in his disposition which is something very attractive about him. Even though any smart entrepreneur would easily sell off his business to the more corporate style high-tech companies like Google, Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo, etc., Mark Zuckerberg knows that this is not the end for Facebook. He believes in taking Facebook higher and higher with the passage of time. He relishes the chance of beating all the major corporations in the world to become the most sought after technological industry in the world, and since he is geared to meet his goals and objectives, nothing can actually stop him. His belief in his own company is immense and one should be hopeful that he will do what he has envisaged for his company in the coming times (Marshall 2009). Mark Zuckerberg knows mountains are not scaled overnight and that things take some time to materialize, hence the reason that he is taking advancing steps in a slow yet steady manner. He wants to be pretty sure that whatever he is doing is based on sound judgment and logic, and nothing else. For him, his emotions hold little value and significance because he has seen success coming to his fore at a very young age. Being just 25 years old, Mark Zuckerberg is indeed a phenomenon if not merely a personality. He has turned heads and turned them forever. He will surely create more buzz in the coming times. Mark Zuckerberg has a lot more in store to give to the world than he has already. Bibliography ARRINGTON, Michael. (2009). Mark Zuckerberg: “Spotify Is So Good”. URL: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/25/mark-zuckerberg-spotify-is-so-good/ 25 August AUTHOR UNKNOWN. (2009). Mark Zuckerberg. URL: http://www.crunchbase.com/person/mark-zuckerberg BRUSILOVSKY, Daniel. (2009). Zuckerberg Moves Up The Forbes 400 List. Net Worth Now $2 Billion. URL: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/30/mark-zuckerberg-net-worth-2-billion/ 30 September MARSHALL, Matt. (2009). Mark Zuckerberg: The evolution of a remarkable CEO. URL: http://venturebeat.com/2009/10/02/mark-zuckerberg-the-evolution-of-a-remarkable-ceo/ 2 October McGIRT, Ellen. (2007). Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg: Hacker. Dropout. CEO. URL: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/115/open_features-hacker-dropout-ceo.html 1 May VOGELSTEIN, Fred. (2007). How Mark Zuckerberg Turned Facebook Into the Webs Hottest Platform. URL: http://www.wired.com/techbiz/startups/news/2007/09/ff_facebook 9 June Word Count: 2,025 Read More