life of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

The fabulous life of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

 

  Earlier this week, Facebook crushed its second quarter earnings and its stock hit an all-time high — which really just means Mark Zuckerberg is one step closer to being the richest man in the world.

Zuckerberg's current net worth is about $33.1 billion, putting him at No. 16 in Forbes's ranking of the world's billionaires. More impressively, he is one of just three people who currently have more billions under their belt than years lived.

The Harvard dropout has clearly made it big thanks to the 2.2 billion people on Facebook. He's known for his charitable tendencies, but Zuckerberg also manages to lead a pretty extravagant life at the same time.



1. Mark Zuckerberg was born on May 14, 1984, in White Plains, New York. He grew up with his three siblings in the nearby town, Dobbs Ferry. At the age of 12, Zuckerberg used Atari Basic to create a messaging programme his dad used in his dental office.

2. Zuckerberg went to Phillips Exeter Academy, an exclusive preparatory school in New Hampshire. While still in high school, he created an early music streaming platform, which AOL and Microsoft showed interest in, but were rebuffed by young Zuckerberg.

3. Zuckerberg enrolled in Harvard University in 2002, where he quickly became known for his developer skills. After his sophomore year, he decided to drop out and focus on 'The Facebook', which he had been running out of his dormroom.



4. Before dropping out, Zuckerberg met his now-wife, Priscilla Chan. She told 'Today's' Savannah Guthrie that they met at a frat party. "On our first date, he told me that he'd rather go on a date with me than finish his take-home midterm," she said. The two married on May 19, 2012 at a surprise wedding, where guests thought they were attending a med school graduation for Chan.

6. The two honeymooned in Italy, flying in on a private jet and staying at a five-star hotel, Portrait Suites, where rooms start at 800 euros per night. The couple tends to set aside two weeks every December to travel, often visiting Chan's family in China.

7. And they have an adorable dog named Beast.

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8. By the end of 2005, Facebook had surpassed 5.5 million users and received $12.7 million from Accel Ventures.

9. Zuckerberg continued to see success with Facebook and in 2010 was featured as Time magazine's person of the year. Vanity Fair also placed him at the top of its New Establishment list, and Forbes ranked him at No. 35 on its '400 list', ahead of Steve Jobs.



10. He took Facebook public on May 18, 2012. The IPO raised $16 billion almost instantly, making it the biggest tech IPO in history.

11. Another sign of Zuckerberg having made it is the fact he received a $1 salary in 2013. (Not including the $653,164 for "other compensation," most of which covered bills for private chartered jets.)

12. He also frequently meets with really important people like Russia's prime minister and former president, Dmitri Medvedev and US president Barack Obama.

13. Oh, and there was an art exhibit in Singapore that was solely about Mark Zuckerberg. The exhibition by Chinese artist Zhu Jia was called 'The Face of Facebook'.

14. Still, Zuckerberg is not particular showy, driving around this black Volkswagen GTI with a manual transmission, which costs around $30,415. However, there were rumours floating around that he recently splurged on a Pagani Huayra.

15. In general, though, he seems to spend his money on trying to make the world a better place. He was the most charitable philanthropist in 2013, having donated half a billion dollars worth of Facebook stock to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. He has also donated a lot of money to Newark, New Jersey's public school system and his nonprofit Internet.org.

READ ALSO: The 17 wildest things Google chairman Eric Schmidt has ever said

16. But don't worry, he still saved more than $30 million to buy four neighbouring houses around his home in Palo Alto. Apparently a developer was going to buy the houses and market them as being next door to Zuckerberg, so Mark decided to buy them himself and lease them to the original owners. His own home is 5,000 square feet.

Oh, and he bought another house in San Francisco for $10 million.

17. He was also comfortable enough to helicopter to the Burning Man festival in Nevada for just one day.
All in all, Zuckerberg leads a pretty modest life, considering all of the billions he is worth. He's happy to stick with his hoodie.