Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (born May 14, 1984) is an American computer programmer and Internet entrepreneur. He is best known as one of five co-founders of the social networking website Facebook. Zuckerberg is the chairman and chief executive of Facebook, Inc. His personal wealth, as of October 2015, is estimated to be $44.6 billion, ranked by Forbes as the 7th richest American. Zuckerberg receives a one-dollar salary as CEO of Facebook.

Together with his college roommates and fellow Harvard University students Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes, he launched Facebook from Harvard University's dormitory rooms. The group then introduced Facebook onto other campuses nationwide and moved to Palo Alto, California shortly afterwards. In 2007, at the age of 23, Zuckerberg became a billionaire as a result of Facebook's success. The number of Facebook users worldwide reached a total of one billion in 2012. Zuckerberg was involved in various legal disputes that were initiated by others in the group, who claimed a share of the company based upon their involvement during the development phase of Facebook.

Since 2010, Time magazine has named Zuckerberg among the 100 wealthiest and most influential people in the world as a part of its Person of the Year distinction. Zuckerberg was played by actor Jesse Eisenberg in the 2010 film The Social Network, in which the rise of Facebook is portrayed.

 

	Early life Zuckerberg was born in 1984 in White Plains, New York. He is the son of dentist Edward Zuckerberg and psychiatrist Karen Kempner. He and his three sisters, Randi, Donna, and Arielle, were brought up in Dobbs Ferry, New York, a small Westchester County village about 21 miles (34 km) north of Midtown Manhattan. Zuckerberg was raised Jewish and had his bar mitzvah when he turned 13. Afterward, he became an atheist. At Ardsley High School, Zuckerberg excelled in classics. He transferred to Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire in his junior year, where he won prizes in science (math, astronomy and physics) and classical studies. On his college application, Zuckerberg claimed that he could read and write French, Hebrew, Latin, and ancient Greek. He was captain of the fencing team. In college, he was known for reciting lines from epic poems such as The Iliad. Software developer Early years Zuckerberg began using computers and writing software in middle school. His father taught him Atari BASIC Programming in the 1990s, and later hired software developer David Newman to tutor him privately. Newman calls him a "prodigy", adding that it was "tough to stay ahead of him". Zuckerberg took a graduate course in the subject at Mercy College near his home while still in high school. He enjoyed developing computer programs, especially communication tools and games. In one such program, since his father's dental practice was operated from their home, he built a software program he called "ZuckNet" that allowed all the computers between the house and dental office to communicate with each other. It is considered a "primitive" version of AOL's Instant Messenger, which came out the following year. According to writer Jose Antonio Vargas, "some kids played computer games. Mark created them." Zuckerberg himself recalls this period: "I had a bunch of friends who were artists. They'd come over, draw stuff, and I'd build a game out of it." However, notes Vargas, Zuckerberg was not a typical "geek-klutz", as he later became captain of his prep school fencing team and earned a classics diploma. Napster co-founder Sean Parker, a close friend, notes that Zuckerberg was "really into Greek odysseys and all that stuff", recalling how he once quoted lines from the Roman epic poem Aeneid, by Virgil, during a Facebook product conference. During Zuckerberg's high school years, under the company name Intelligent Media Group, he built a music player called the Synapse Media Player that used machine learning to learn the user's listening habits, which was posted to Slashdot and received a rating of 3 out of 5 from PC Magazine. College years By the time he began classes at Harvard, Zuckerberg had already achieved a "reputation as a programming prodigy", notes Vargas. He studied psychology and computer science as well as belonging to Alpha Epsilon Pi, a Jewish fraternity, and Kirkland House. 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. According to Zuckerberg's roommate at the time, Arie Hasit, "he built the site for fun". Hasit explains: We 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. The site went up over a weekend; but by Monday morning, the college shut it down because its popularity had overwhelmed one of Harvard's network switches and prevented students from accessing the Internet. In addition, many students complained that their photos were being used without permission. Zuckerberg apologized publicly, and the student paper ran articles stating that his site was "completely improper." The following semester, in January 2004, Zuckerberg began writing code for a new website.On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launched "Thefacebook", originally located at thefacebook.com. Six days after the site launched, three Harvard seniors, Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra, accused Zuckerberg of intentionally misleading them into believing he would help them build a social network called HarvardConnection.com, while he was instead using their ideas to build a competing product. The three complained to the Harvard Crimson and the newspaper began an investigation in response. Following the official launch of the Facebook social media platform, the three filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg that resulted in a settlement. The agreed settlement was for 1.2 million Facebook shares that were worth US$300 million at Facebook's IPO. Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard in his sophomore year to complete his project. In January 2014, Zuckerberg recalled: I remember really vividly, you know, having pizza with my friends a day or two after—I opened up the first version of Facebook at the time I thought, "You know, someone needs to build a service like this for the world." But I just never thought that we'd be the ones to help do it. And I think a lot of what it comes down to is we just cared more. Career Zuckerberg listening to President Barack Obama before a private meeting where Obama dined with technology business leaders in Woodside, California, February 17, 2011. Also seen in the picture are Carol Bartz of Yahoo!, Art Levinson of Genentech, Steve Westly of The Westly Group, and Eric Schmidt of Google. Facebook Main articles: Facebook, History of Facebook and Timeline of Facebook Zuckerberg launched Facebook from his Harvard dormitory room on February 4, 2004.An earlier inspiration for Facebook may have come from Phillips Exeter Academy, the prep school from which Zuckerberg graduated in 2002. It published its own student directory, "The Photo Address Book", which students referred to as "The Facebook". Such photo directories were an important part of the student social experience at many private schools. With them, students were able to list attributes such as their class years, their friends, and their telephone numbers. 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. They began with Columbia, New York University, Stanford, Dartmouth, Cornell, Penn, Brown, and Yale. Samyr Laine, a triple jumper representing Haiti at the 2012 Summer Olympics, shared a room with Zuckerberg during Facebook's founding. "Mark was clearly on to great things," said Laine, who was Facebook's fourteenth user. After 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 the company. In an interview in 2007, Zuckerberg explained his reasoning: "It's not because of the amount of money. For me and my colleagues, the most important thing is that we create an open information flow for people. Having media corporations owned by conglomerates is just not an attractive idea to me." He restated these goals to Wired magazine in 2010: "The thing I really care about is the mission, making the world open." Earlier, in April 2009, Zuckerberg sought the advice of former Netscape CFO Peter Currie about financing strategies for Facebook. On July 21, 2010, Zuckerberg reported that the company reached the 500 million-user mark. When asked whether Facebook could earn more income from advertising as a result of its phenomenal growth, he explained: I guess we could..... If you look at how much of our page is taken up with ads compared to the average search query. The average for us is a little less than 10 percent of the pages and the average for search is about 20 percent taken up with ads..... That's the simplest thing we could do. But we aren't like that. We make enough money. Right, I mean, we are keeping things running; we are growing at the rate we want to. In 2010, Steven Levy, who wrote the 1984 book Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, wrote that Zuckerberg "clearly thinks of himself as a hacker". Zuckerberg said that "it's OK to break things" "to make them better". Facebook instituted "hackathons" held every six to eight weeks where participants would have one night to conceive of and complete a project. The company provided music, food, and beer at the hackathons, and many Facebook staff members, including Zuckerberg, regularly attended. "The idea is that you can build something really good in a night", Zuckerberg told Levy. "And that' part of the personality of Facebook now..... It's definitely very core to my personality." Vanity Fair magazine named Zuckerberg number 1 on its 2010 list of the Top 100 "most influential people of the Information Age".Zuckerberg ranked number 23 on the Vanity Fair 100 list in 2009. In 2010, Zuckerberg was chosen as number 16 in New Statesman's annual survey of the world's 50 most influential figures. In a 2011 interview with PBS after the death of Steve Jobs, Zuckerberg said that Jobs had advised him on how to create a management team at Facebook that was "focused on building as high quality and good things as you are". On October 1, 2012, Zuckerberg visited Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow to stimulate social media innovation in Russia and to boost Facebook's position in the Russian market. Russia's communications minister tweeted that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev urged the social media giant's founder to abandon plans to lure away Russian programmers and instead consider opening a research center in Moscow. In 2012, Facebook had roughly 9 million users in Russia, while domestic clone VK had around 34 million. Rebecca Van Dyck, Facebook's head of consumer marketing, claimed that 85 million American Facebook users were exposed to the first day of the Home promotional campaign on April 6, 2013. On August 19, 2013, the Washington Post reported that Zuckerberg's Facebook profile was hacked by an unemployed web developer. At the 2013 TechCrunch Disrupt conference, held in September, Zuckerberg stated that he is working towards registering the 5 billion humans who were not connected to the Internet as of the conference on Facebook. Zuckerberg then explained that this is intertwined with the aim of the Internet.org project, whereby Facebook, with the support of other technology companies, seeks to increase the number of people connected to the internet. Zuckerberg was the keynote speaker at the 2014 Mobile World Congress (MWC), held in Barcelona, Spain, in March 2014, which was attended by 75,000 delegates. Various media sources highlighted the connection between Facebook's focus on mobile technology and Zuckerberg's speech, claiming that mobile represents the future of the company.Zuckerberg's speech expands upon the goal that he raised at the TechCrunch conference in September 2013, whereby he is working towards expanding Internet coverage into developing countries. Alongside other American technology figures like Jeff Bezos and Tim Cook, Zuckerberg hosted visiting Chinese politician Lu Wei, known as the "Internet czar" for his influence in the enforcement of China's online policy, at Facebook's headquarters on December 8, 2014. The meeting occurred after Zuckerberg participated in a Q&A session at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, on October 23, 2014, where he attempted to converse in Mandarin Chinese—although Facebook is banned in China, Zuckerberg is highly regarded among the people and was at the university to help fuel the nation's burgeoning entrepreneur sector. Zuckerberg fielded questions during a live Q&A session at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park on December 11, 2014. The founder and CEO explained that he does not believe Facebook is a waste of time because it facilitates social engagement, and participating in a public session was so that he could "learn how to better serve the community". Wirehog Main article: Wirehog A month after Facebook launched in February 2004, i2hub, another campus-only service, created by Wayne Chang, was launched. i2hub focused on peer-to-peer file sharing. At the time, both i2hub and Facebook were gaining the attention of the press and growing rapidly in users and publicity. In August 2004, Zuckerberg, Andrew McCollum, Adam D'Angelo, and Sean Parker launched a competing peer-to-peer file sharing service called Wirehog, a precursor to Facebook Platform applications. Platform, Beacon and Connect Zuckerberg at World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland (January 2009) On May 24, 2007, Zuckerberg announced Facebook Platform, a development platform for programmers to create social applications within Facebook. Within weeks, many applications had been built and some already had millions of users. It grew to more than 800,000 developers around the world building applications for Facebook Platform.[citation needed] On November 6, 2007, Zuckerberg announced Beacon, a social advertising system that enabled people to share information with their Facebook friends based on their browsing activities on other sites. For example, eBay sellers could let friends know automatically what they have for sale via the Facebook news feed as they listed items for sale. The program came under scrutiny because of privacy concerns from groups and individual users. Zuckerberg and Facebook failed to respond to the concerns quickly, and on December 5, 2007, Zuckerberg wrote a blog post on Facebook, taking responsibility for the concerns about Beacon and offering an easier way for users to opt out of the service. In 2007, Zuckerberg was named by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Technology Review's TR35 as one of the top 35 innovators in the world under the age of 35.On July 23, 2008, Zuckerberg announced Facebook Connect, a version of Facebook Platform for users. Internet.org In a public Facebook post, Zuckerberg launched the Internet.org project in late August 2013. Zuckerberg explained that the primary aim of the initiative is to provide Internet access to the 5 billion people who are not connected as of the launch date. Using a three-tier strategy, Internet.org will also create new jobs and open up new markets, according to Zuckerberg. He stated in his post: The world economy is going through a massive transition right now. The knowledge economy is the future. By bringing everyone online, we'll not only improve billions of lives, but we'll also improve our own as we benefit from the ideas and productivity they contribute to the world. Giving everyone the opportunity to connect is the foundation for enabling the knowledge economy. It is not the only thing we need to do, but it's a fundamental and necessary step.            To stay proven on the efforts of bringing in the concept of net neutrality, Mark Zuckerberg met Narendra Modi, Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichai at the Silicon Valley, USA to discuss on how to effectively establish affordable Internet access to the less developed countries. As a token of initiation, Mark Zuckerberg changed his Facebook profile picture to extend his support to the Digital India to help the rural communities to stay connected to the Internet. Legal controversies Main article: Criticism of Facebook ConnectU lawsuits Main article: ConnectU Harvard students Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra accused Zuckerberg of intentionally making them believe he would help them build a social network called HarvardConnection.com (later called ConnectU) They filed a lawsuit in 2004, but it was dismissed on a technicality on March 28, 2007. It was refiled soon thereafter in federal court in Boston. Facebook countersued in regards to Social Butterfly, a project put out by The Winklevoss Chang Group, an alleged partnership between ConnectU and i2hub. On June 25, 2008, the case settled and Facebook agreed to transfer over 1.2 million common shares and pay $20 million in cash. In November 2007, confidential court documents were posted on the website of 02138, a magazine that catered to Harvard alumni. They included Zuckerberg's social security number, his parents' home address, and his girlfriend's address. Facebook filed to have the documents removed, but the judge ruled in favor of 02138. Saverin lawsuit A lawsuit filed by Eduardo Saverin against Facebook and Zuckerberg was settled out of court. Though terms of the settlement were sealed, the company affirmed Saverin's title as co-founder of Facebook. Saverin signed a non-disclosure contract after the settlement. Pakistan criminal investigation In June 2010, Pakistani Deputy Attorney General Muhammad Azhar Sidiqque launched a criminal investigation into Zuckerberg and Facebook co-founders Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes after a "Draw Muhammad" contest was hosted on Facebook. The investigation named the anonymous German woman who created the contest. Sidiqque asked the country's police to contact Interpol to have Zuckerberg and the three others arrested for blasphemy. On May 19, 2010, Facebook's website was temporarily blocked in Pakistan until Facebook removed the contest from its website at the end of May. Sidiqque also asked its UN representative to raise the issue with the United Nations General Assembly. Paul Ceglia Main article: Paul Ceglia In June 2010, Paul Ceglia, the owner of a wood pellet fuel company in Allegany County, upstate New York, filed suit against Zuckerberg, claiming 84% ownership of Facebook and seeking monetary damages. According to Ceglia, he and Zuckerberg signed a contract on April 28, 2003, that an initial fee of $1,000 entitled Ceglia to 50% of the website's revenue, as well as an additional 1% interest in the business per day after January 1, 2004, until website completion. Zuckerberg was developing other projects at the time, among which was Facemash, the predecessor of Facebook, but did not register the domain name thefacebook.com until January 1, 2004. Facebook management dismissed the lawsuit as "completely frivolous". Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt told a reporter that Ceglia's counsel had unsuccessfully sought an out-of-court settlement. On October 26, 2012, federal authorities arrested Ceglia, charging him with mail and wire fraud and of "tampering with, destroying and fabricating evidence in a scheme to defraud the Facebook founder of billions of dollars." Ceglia is accused of fabricating emails to make it appear that he and Zuckerberg discussed details about an early version of Facebook, although after examining their emails, investigators found there was no mention of Facebook in them.Some law firms withdrew from the case before it was initiated and others after Ceglia's arrest. Depictions in media The Social Network Main article: The Social Network A movie based on Zuckerberg and the founding years of Facebook, The Social Network was released on October 1, 2010, and stars Jesse Eisenberg as Zuckerberg. After Zuckerberg was told about the film, he responded, "I just wished that nobody made a movie of me while I was still alive." Also, after the film's script was leaked on the Internet and it was apparent that the film would not portray Zuckerberg in a wholly positive light, he stated that he wanted to establish himself as a "good guy". The film is based on the book The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich, which the book's publicist once described as "big juicy fun" rather than "reportage". The film's screenwriter Aaron Sorkin told New York magazine, "I don't want my fidelity to be the truth; I want it to be storytelling", adding, "What is the big deal about accuracy purely for accuracy's sake, and can we not have the true be the enemy of the good?" Upon winning the Golden Globes award for Best Picture on January 16, 2011, producer Scott Rudin thanked Facebook and Zuckerberg "for his willingness to allow us to use his life and work as a metaphor through which to tell a story about communication and the way we relate to each other.” Sorkin, who won for Best Screenplay, retracted some of the impressions given in his script: "I wanted to say to Mark Zuckerberg tonight, if you're watching, Rooney Mara's character makes a prediction at the beginning of the movie. She was wrong. You turned out to be a great entrepreneur, a visionary, and an incredible altruist." On January 29, 2011, Zuckerberg made a surprise guest appearance on Saturday Night Live, which was being hosted by Jesse Eisenberg. They both said it was the first time they ever met. Eisenberg asked Zuckerberg, who had been critical of his portrayal by the film, what he thought of the movie. Zuckerberg replied, "It was interesting." In a subsequent interview about their meeting, Eisenberg explains that he was "nervous to meet him, because I had spent now, a year and a half thinking about him ..." He adds, "Mark has been so gracious about something that’s really so uncomfortable ... The fact that he would do SNL and make fun of the situation is so sweet and so generous. It’s the best possible way to handle something that, I think, could otherwise be very uncomfortable." Disputed accuracy Jeff Jarvis, author of the book Public Parts, interviewed Zuckerberg and believes Sorkin made up too much of the story. He states, "That's what the internet is accused of doing, making stuff up, not caring about the facts." According to David Kirkpatrick, former technology editor at Fortune magazine and author of The Facebook Effect:The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World, (2011),"the film is only "40% true ... he is not snide and sarcastic in a cruel way, the way Zuckerberg is played in the movie." He says that "a lot of the factual incidents are accurate, but many are distorted and the overall impression is false", and concludes that primarily "his motivations were to try and come up with a new way to share information on the internet". Although the film portrays Zuckerberg's creation of Facebook in order to elevate his stature after not getting into any of the elite final clubs at Harvard, Zuckerberg himself said he had no interest in joining the clubs. Kirkpatrick agrees that the impression implied by the film is "false". Karel Baloun, a former senior engineer at Facebook, notes that the "image of Zuckerberg as a socially inept nerd is overstated..... It is fiction....." He likewise dismisses the film's assertion that he "would deliberately betray a friend". Other depictions Zuckerberg voiced himself on an episode of The Simpsons titled "Loan-a Lisa", which first aired on October 3, 2010. In the episode, Lisa Simpson and her friend Nelson encounter Zuckerberg at an entrepreneurs' convention. Zuckerberg tells Lisa that she does not need to graduate from college to be wildly successful, referencing Bill Gates and Richard Branson as examples. On October 9, 2010, Saturday Night Live lampooned Zuckerberg and Facebook. Andy Samberg played Zuckerberg. The real Zuckerberg was reported to have been amused: "I thought this was funny." Stephen Colbert awarded a "Medal of Fear" to Zuckerberg at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear on October 30, 2010, "because he values his privacy much more than he values yours". Use of other social networks Zuckerberg created an account with Google+ soon after the social network was unveiled, saying he sees it as a "validation for his vision" of online social networking. By July 2011, Zuckerberg had become the most followed user on Google+, outranking Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. As of March 6, 2012, his ranking has dropped to 184 on the service, behind Page and Brin. His public profile is minimal with one photo and a bio that reads "I make things". Zuckerberg has maintained a private account on Twitter under the username "zuck", although as of November 2014, the account's status is suspended. In 2009, he revealed that the public account "finkd" also belonged to him. Philanthropy Zuckerberg donated an undisclosed amount to Diaspora, an open-source personal web server that implements a distributed social networking service. He called it a "cool idea". Zuckerberg founded the Start-up: Education foundation. On September 22, 2010, it was reported that Zuckerberg had donated $100million to Newark Public Schools, the public school system of Newark, New Jersey. Critics noted the timing of the donation as being close to the release of The Social Network, which painted a somewhat negative portrait of Zuckerberg.Zuckerberg responded to the criticism, saying, "The thing that I was most sensitive about with the movie timing was, I didn't want the press about The Social Network movie to get conflated with the Newark project. I was thinking about doing this anonymously just so that the two things could be kept separate." Newark Mayor Cory A. Booker stated that he and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie had to convince Zuckerberg's team not to make the donation anonymously. The money was largely wasted, according to journalist Dale Russakoff. On December 9, 2010, Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and investor Warren Buffett signed a promise they called "The Giving Pledge ", in which they promised to donate to charity at least half of their wealth over the course of time, and invited others among the wealthy to donate 50% or more of their wealth to charity. On December 19, 2013, Zuckerberg announced a donation of 18 million Facebook shares to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, to be executed by the end of the month—based on Facebook's valuation as of then, the shares totaled $990 million in value. On December 31, 2013, the donation was recognized as the largest charitable gift on public record for 2013. The Chronicle of Philanthropy placed Zuckerberg and his wife at the top of the magazine's annual list of 50 most generous Americans for 2013, having donated roughly $1 billion to charity. In October 2014, Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan donated $25 million to combat the ebola virus disease, specifically the ebola virus epidemic in West Africa. Politics In 2002, Zuckerberg registered to vote in Westchester County, New York, where he grew up, but did not cast a ballot until November 2008. Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters Spokeswoman, Elma Rosas, told Bloomberg that Zuckerberg is listed as “no preference” on voter rolls, and he voted in the past two general elections, in 2008 and 2012. On Zuckerberg's Facebook page, he has Chris Christie, Cory Booker, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Barack Obama in his likes section. Mark Zuckerberg has never specified his own political views: some consider him a conservative, while others consider him liberal. In 2013, numerous liberal and progressive groups, such as The League of Conservation Voters, MoveOn.org, the Sierra Club, Democracy for America, CREDO, Daily Kos, 350.org, and Presente and Progressives United agreed to either pull their Facebook ad buys or not buy Facebook ads for at least two weeks, in protest of Zuckerberg ads funded by FWD.us that were in support of oil drilling and the Keystone XL pipeline, and in opposition to Obamacare among Republican US senators who back immigration reform.[clarification needed] On February 13, 2013, Zuckerberg hosted his first ever fundraising event for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Zuckerberg's particular interest on this occasion was education reform, and Christie's education reform work focused on teachers unions and the expansion of charter schools. Later that year, Zuckerberg would host a campaign fundraiser for Newark mayor Cory Booker, who was running in the 2013 New Jersey special Senate election. In September 2010, with the support of Governor Chris Christie, Booker obtained a $100 million pledge from Zuckerberg to Newark Public Schools. In December 2012, Zuckerberg donated 18 million shares to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a community organization that includes education in its list of grant-making areas. On April 11, 2013, Zuckerberg led the launch of a 501(c)(4) lobbying group called FWD.us. The founders and contributors to the group were primarily Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and investors, and its president was Joe Green, a close friend of Zuckerberg. The goals of the group include immigration reform, improving the state of education in the US, and enabling more technological breakthroughs that benefit the public, yet it has also been criticized for financing ads advocating a variety of oil and gas development initiatives, including drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Keystone XL pipeline. A media report on June 20, 2013 revealed that Zuckerberg actively engaged with Facebook users on his own profile page after the online publication of a FWD.us video. In response to a claim that the FWD.us organization is "just about tech wanting to hire more people", the Internet entrepreneur replied: "The bigger problem we’re trying to address is ensuring the 11 million undocumented folks living in this country now and similar folks in the future are treated fairly." In June 2013, Zuckerberg joined Facebook employees in a company float as part of the annual San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Celebration. The company first participated in the event in 2011, with 70 employees, and this number increased to 700 for the 2013 march. The 2013 pride celebration was especially significant, as it followed a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that deemed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional. When questioned about the mid-2013 PRISM scandal at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in September 2013, Zuckerberg stated that the U.S. government "blew it." He further explained that the government performed poorly in regard to the protection of the freedoms of its citizens, the economy, and companies. Personal life Zuckerberg met fellow student Priscilla Chan at a fraternity party during his sophomore year at Harvard, they began dating in 2003. Chan is the daughter of Chinese-Vietnamese refugees, who arrived in the U.S. after the Fall of Saigon in 1975. She was born in Braintree, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, and is a 2003 graduate of Quincy High School. In September 2010, Zuckerberg invited Chan, by then a medical student at the University of California, to move into his rented Palo Alto house. Zuckerberg studied Mandarin in preparation for the couple's visit to the People's Republic of China in December 2010.On May 19, 2012, Zuckerberg and Chan married in Zuckerberg's backyard in an event that also celebrated her graduation from medical school. On July 31, 2015, Zuckerberg announced that he and Chan were expecting a baby girl. He stated that he felt confident that the risk of miscarrying was low so far into the pregnancy, after Chan had already suffered three miscarriages.

Inspirational Stories

1.

Two good friends had a quarrel one day...

Two good friends had a quarrel one day, and one of them slapped another. The man felt pain, but said nothing and wrote on the sand: “Today my best friend slapped me.”

Two friends continued walking and found an oasis. They decided to swim in a wellspring and suddenly the one who was slapped, started to sink, but his friend saved him.

When he regained consciousness, he wrote on the stone: “Today my best friend saved my life.”

The other friend, who slapped and saved his friend’s life, asked him:

– When I hurt you, you wrote on the sand and now you are writing on the stone. Why?

His friend said:

– When someone hurts us, we should write it on the sand, so that the wind could erase it. But when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it on the stone, so that the wind could not erase it.

2.

One businessman was in debt...

 One businessman was in debt and couldn’t figure out a way out of it. Creditors were pressing him. Suppliers were demanding for a payment. He was sitting on a bench in the park with his head down, thinking what could save the company from bankruptcy. Suddenly, an old man appeared in front of him.
– I see that something is bothering you, – he said.
After listening to the businessman, the old man said:
– I think I can help you.
He asked the businessman, what his name was, wrote him a check and said:
– Take this money. We will meet here exactly in one year, and you will be able to return it to me at that time.
After that, he turned around and disappeared just as suddenly as he appeared.
The businessman saw a check in his hands for an amount of 500 thousand dollars, signed by John Rockefeller, one of the richest people in the world at that time!
‘I could end all of my problems in no time!’ – He thought. But instead, the businessman decided to put the check into his safe. Only one thought about its existence gave him strength to find a solution to save his business.
With the return of his optimism, he concluded profitable deals. During a couple of months he got out of debt and started to earn money again.
Exactly one year later, he returned to the park with the same check. At the agreed time the old man appeared again. And at the moment, when the businessman wanted to return the check and to share his story of success, a nurse ran up and grabbed the old man.
– I’m so glad, I caught him! – She exclaimed. – I hope he wasn’t bothering you. He always runs away from the house and tells he is John Rockefeller.
The businessman was bemused. During the whole year he was spinning and building a business, buying and selling, convinced that he had half a million dollars. And suddenly he understood that it’s not the money, real or imaginary, that turned his life up. It was his new confidence and belief that gave him strength to achieve everything that he had now.

3.

Happy Dervish...

  

Once, a shah was riding in his palanquin through the town, looking through the window at the scurrying people. Suddenly, he saw a lonely dervish sitting in the middle of the crowd, who was smiling and looking happy about something. The dervish was dressed poorly, and except the saucer for hand-outs and a road script he had nothing else besides him. The shah road past him and soon forgot what he saw.

After a few days, the shah had to go the same way again, where he saw the same dervish again, completely happy, dozing with blissfully closed eyes.

The next day, shah chose the same way on purpose, to see if the dervish will be in his place and again the image was the same. Intrigued, shah was going the same way almost every day and every time he found the dervish in the same spirit.

Finally, unable to stand it anymore, shah came out from the palanquin and addressed the imperturbable dervish with these words, “Why are you always smiling? Almost every day I see you here and it seems that you are absolutely happy.”

“Exactly, my master.” said the dervish with a smile.

Shah was surprised and asked, “Why are you happy? Do you have any money?”

“I don’t have anything, my master. Maybe during the day a little bit will fall in for food.”

“Do you have a home or a family?”

“Neither this and nor that. I wander the world as the wind.”

“Maybe then, you have good heath?”

“Absolutely not, my master, from the cold of the night my bones ace often and almost all of my teeth have fallen out.”

“What makes you so happy then? Tell me. Maybe your recipe for happiness will be useful to me. I have everything, but I’m unhappy.”

“God never sends more challenges for one person that he can’t handle. And burdens a person only with those circumstances, which at that moment, are most useful for his development. The circumstances in which the person is – is the place for spiritualization. I accept that the best thing for me now is what I am, where I am and what is happening with me. I accept it with gratitude and a smile, if necessary with resistance and patience, and if possible, I try to understand what God is trying to say to me with it and in which direction should I move with my development. The realization of it doesn’t make me absolutely happy, but I have a clear horizon opening in front of me, free from the rainy curtains and filled with the sunny light of awareness.”

 4.

Jim worked at a radio station all his life...

 

Jim worked at a radio station all his life. He was a well-known and famous radio show host. All of his friends and colleges knew him by one feature: if he’s on-air, he is always wearing a suit and a tie. They laughed at him: ‘No one ever sees you, why do you dress like that?’, but he always turned that into a joke.

One day Jim was invited to appear on the TV. There was a show dedicated to the oldest radio employees. For the first time the people, who only knew him by his voice, would see him. Before the recording of the show, the director came to Jim and asked:

– Usually you arrive on time, but today you are 10 minutes late. It’s not horrible, but I’m still interested, why?

– You see, – Jim answered, – at the last moment when I was already dressed up, I noticed that I don’t have new socks. For the first time I was invited to the television, and I thought that simply wearing clean sock is not enough. It needs to be in new socks. So I needed to go to the store for socks.

– But why do you need new socks? – The director was surprised. – You could have come without the socks, because we will be filming you only in close-up, over the waist.

– You see, to be spotless on-air, I need to feel myself spotless in everything, starting with the shirt and finishing with the pen in my pocket. And if my socks have holes in them, or my shoes are dirty, I’m not spotless anymore.

5.

One student asked his wise teacher...

 

One student asked his wise teacher, what is more important for a person: is it outer or inner beauty? In response to that the teacher asked his student:

– Tell me, if you needed to buy a house, but you only had enough money for a beautiful outside, but a comfortless house, or a poor house, but warm and reliable. What would you choose?

– I would rather choose a simple outside but convenient inside house.

– But what if a vain person was buying a house, proud of his position, but not having enough resource to buy a beautiful and cosy house?- asked the teacher again.

– Surely, he would prefer the outer beauty of the house, – answered the student.

– I think you are right, – said the teacher and added: – but regardless of your choice, each of you would understand that you are missing beauty or comfort and would seek for it.

– So it means that outer and inner beauty is essentially equivalent and valuable only in harmony? – asked Zhao Zeng.

– You can say that, – answered the teacher smiling, – but I thought foremost that when possessing a half, you always need to seek for a whole, not losing what you already have. Because a half will always be only a half, despite of how great it would be.

6.

Once upon a time there was a Wave...

 

Once upon a time there was a Wave. She liked to frolic with the wind. She liked to caress the rocks on the shore.

Once she got into a strange bay. There was a Cliff. He stood in the middle of the bay. The Wave became friends with Cliff. They could talk for hours. They spent all time together.

Once the Wave realized that she loved the Cliff. He also liked funny and careless Wave. But he told her:

— No, you can‘t love me. I am a stone. I am a Cliff. I don‘t know how to love. I will break you.

But the Wave did not want to back down. She tried to hug Cliff and was scattered by thousands of gold spray. But Wave tried to do this again. She forced herself just to communicate with Cliff. She carefully took off shells, sticking on him. But Cliff said:

— I am strong. I am a stone. I don‘t need your care.

Once again the Wave rushed towards him. Once again the sprays glistened on the wind…

The years passed. The Wave still loved the Cliff. He pretended not noticing this. She tried to approach him – and still has been broken.

One morning the Wave disappeared. The Cliff woke up and did not see her nearby. But he forced himself not to think about it. Days went by, but she did not appear.

Several years have passed, and the Wave came back. She has changed a lot. She knew a lot more about life now. She was no longer so thoughtless and careless. But she still loved the Cliff. And he … he pretended that it does not matter that she came back, because he was a stone. How could he afford a weakness for the Wave?

Many years have passed. The Wave still talked with the Cliff, but there were no more intimate conversations and long night vigils. The Cliff was getting older. Water undermined it. And the Wave was travelling, learning new countries and cities, new people. Somehow, returning home, she realized that she no longer thought of the Cliff. The Cliff also understood that. And he also understood that could not live without her, without her stories about the cities and foreign shores, without her twitter about everything. One day the Cliff told her:

– Yes, I am a stone. Yes, I am a Cliff. But I cannot live without you.

And he fell into the waves. And the Wave… she just kissed him saying goodbye.

7.

 

Once upon a time, there was an unfortunate poor man...

 Once upon a time, there was an unfortunate poor man. His home was also very poor – a small and empty house, where mice made their nests and spiders made their webs.
People tried to avoid coming into his house – why should they go into those poor ruins? And the poor man thought that poverty is the reason of his misfortunes – his eternal destiny.
So once, the poor man met a wizard and complained to him about his poverty and miserable life. The wizard felt sorry for the poor man and gave him an unprecedented vase. And said:
– This is a magical vase that will save you from poverty.
The poor man took the vase and wanted to sell it at first and then spend the money on alcohol, as usual, besides, why would he need such a beautiful thing? But then he started admiring the vase and couldn’t take it to the market. He brought the vase home, put it on the table and started admiring it.
– It’s not right for such a beautiful thing to be empty, – the poor man thought. So he picked some wildflowers and put them into the vase.
It became even more beautiful.
– Not good, – the poor man though again, – that such a beautiful thing stands next to a spider web.
So the poor man started cleaning his house from spider webs, sweeping out cockroaches and mice, cleaning the dust, washing the floor and the walls, whitening the ceiling.
And it became clear that his house wasn’t poor, but rather warm and cosy. And the poor man wasn’t a poor man anymore, but a hard working host, who had no time for the thoughts about misfortune.

8.

Late in the evening I was walking in the park...

 

Late in the evening I was walking in the park. Suddenly I heard scream coming from behind bushes. I stopped to listen and understood that a woman was attacked. I heard sounds of fighting and muttering. For several moments I was hesitating, should I get involved?

I panicked. I was frightened for my own safety. Maybe it is better to call the police? Then I realized that a woman‘s voice becomes weaker, so I knew I have to act quickly. Can I run away from this? Finally I decided that I have to help this unknown woman even if I am risking my own life. I felt some strange transformation inside, the moral and physical strength, so I ran behind the bushes. I pulled the attacker off the girl. We felt to the ground and grappled for several minutes. Then the assailant jumped up and ran away.

Breathing hard I slowly came up to the girl, who was cowering behind a tree. It was dark, so I could not see her face clearly. I felt, that she is very frightened, so I talked to her from a distance: „You are safe now, it‘s ok, the man had run away“. After a few moments I heard her words with a great amazement in her voice: „Dad, is that you?” And then I realized that the girl was my youngest daughter.

9.

 

A poor boy was selling goods from one door to another...

 

A poor boy was selling goods from one door to another to pay for his studies. One day he found that he had only one dime left, and he was hungry. While approaching the next house, he decided to ask for a meal.
But when a young woman has opened the door, he only dared to ask for a glass of water. She looked at him and understood that probably the boy is hungry. So she brought him a large glass of milk. He drank it and then asked how much he owed her. The woman replied: „You don‘t own me anything. Mother taught us never to accept pay for a kindness“. „Then I thank you from the bottom of my heart“, – he said and felt that now is stronger not only physically, but his faith in God has grown as well. The boy‘s name was Howard Kelly.
Many years have passed. One day that woman became seriously ill. Local doctors could not help her. Therefore they sent her to a big city, where her rare disease would be studied by specialists. Dr Howard Kelly was called in for the consultation. When he entered her room in the hospital, he immediately recognized the woman, that showed kindness to him, when he was poor. The doctor was determined to do his best to help her recover from her disease.
The struggle was long, but together they managed to overcome her illness. After some time the woman received a bill for her treatment. She was worried that the amount to pay would be so significant, that it would take the rest of her life to pay for it. Finally, when the woman looked at the bill, she noticed words that were written on the side of the bill. The words were: „Paid in full with a glass of milk“.

10.

When I was a little girl, I remember that...

 

When I was a little girl, I remember that when my dad was repairing something, every time he asked me to hold the hammer, just so we would have a time for a conversation with each other. I never saw my dad drinking or taking a „night out with the boys“, all he did after work was taking care of his family.
I grew up and left home for college and since then, my dad had been calling me every Sunday morning, no matter what. And when several years later I bought a house, my dad was painting it by himself for three days in the 80-degree summer heat. All he asked was to hold his paint brush and talk to him. But I was too busy in those days, I did not find any time for a conversation with my dad.
Four years ago, my dad was visiting me. He spent many hours putting together a swing set for my daughter. He asked to bring him a cup of tea and have a talk with him, but I had to prepare for a trip that weekend, so I did not have time for any long conversations that day.
One Sunday morning we had a telephone talk as usual, I noticed that my dad had forgotten some things that we discussed lately. I was in a hurry, so our conversation was short. Few hours later that day came a call. My father was in a hospital with an aneurysm. Immediately I bought ticket for a flight and on my way I was thinking about all missed occasions to have a talk with my dad.
By the time I have arrived to hospital, my father had passed away. Now it was he who did not have time for a conversation with me. I realized how little I knew about my dad, his deepest thoughts and dreams.
After his death I learned much more about him, and even more about myself. All he ever asked me was my time. And now his has all my attention every single day.

Inspirational Stories-Black or White

When I was in elementary school, I got into a major argument with a boy in my class. I have forgotten what the argument was about, but I have never forgotten the lesson I learned that day.

I was convinced that “I” was right and “he” was wrong – and he was just as convinced that “I” was wrong and “he” was right. The teacher decided to teach us a very important lesson.

She brought us up to the front of the class and placed him on one side of her desk and me on the other. In the middle of her desk was a large, round object. I could clearly see that it was black. She asked the boy what color the object was. “White,” he answered.

I couldn’t believe he said the object was white, when it was obviously black! Another argument started between my classmate and me, this time about the color of the object.

The teacher told me to go stand where the boy was standing and told him to come stand where I had been. We changed places, and now she asked me what the color of the object was. I had to answer, “White.”

It was an object with two differently colored sides, and from his viewpoint it was white. Only from my side it was black.

Sometimes we need to look at the problem from the other person’s view in order to truly understand his/her perspective.

Inspirational Stories-Homeless Man Steve

This evening as I was leaving Best Buy, I noticed this man going through the garbage can outside of the store. As I walked to my car I watched him as he reached in the garbage can and pulled out fast food trash bags and inspected all that was in the thrown away bags. He did this for several minutes. He would find a few fries in one bag and a bite or two of a hamburger in another bag. You can see the hamburger wrapper by his knee where he was placing the food items he’d found.

He never bothered anyone or tried to stop and beg for money as people entered and left the store. After he went through the entire trash can he neatly cleaned up the area and wrapped up the food he found in the dirty hamburger wrapper. My heart literally hurt for him. I am not someone who just hands out money or even helps homeless people because so many are not truly homeless. I don’t guess I’ve ever seen someone actually go through a garbage can to try to find food to eat.

Steve

I knew I had to help him. I got out of my car and asked him if I could buy him something to eat. He told me he would appreciate anything I could get him. He was on a bike and I told him if he’d follow me I’d buy him a meal at the fast food place around the block. He followed me and I bought him the biggest meal they had on the menu. The only request he gave me for his order was if I could get him a big glass of sweet tea to go with his meal!

When I brought him his food, he was so thankful. He told me his name was Steve and he’d been homeless ever since his sister died last September. He was trying to get off the streets, but it was so hard. I told him God loved him and I would pray for him. He told me again how much he appreciated the meal.

When I got back in my car, I drove off with such a heaviness in my heart for this man. I drove down the road and felt compelled to go back to help this man. When I came back he had finished his meal and was riding away. I pulled up beside him and asked him if there was any way I could help him. He told me not really. He never asked me for money. I asked him if I could buy him a few meals and put it on a gift card for him. He told me that would be so kind. I drove to McDonalds and bought him some meals and gave him a gift card.

He broke down crying. He told me that he prayed for me today! I wasn’t sure what he meant (I was assuming he was praying for me for what I did for him) so I thanked him. He said, “No, you don’t understand. I prayed that God would send someone to buy me a hot meal today… and he sent you!” I didn’t know what to say… I was speechless! Praying for a hot meal wasn’t a prayer I had prayed today! Come to think of it, that’s not a prayer I’ve ever prayed! I always pray over my food, but I’ve never prayed for a meal… its expected! I’ve never doubted that I wouldn’t be able to eat… Tears began to fill my eyes! Oh my… how blessed am I… Maybe God used me to answer this man’s prayer… to let him know that He cares for Him and knows what goes going through! But, maybe God used this man to show me just how blessed I am and what I take for granted…

He said, “You see, I have cancer!” He pulled up his shirt and pointed to a huge mass that was poking out from his stomach. He said said he knew it wouldn’t be much longer. I asked him if knew Jesus. He told me that he did. I asked if I could pray for him and he said that I could. We prayed right there on the sidewalk of McDonalds. Tears just poured from his eyes. He told me he knew that he was going to die and that he was ready to die. He was tired of being in pain and he would be better off dead because this was no life – living this way. I stayed and encouraged him for a few minutes trying to fight back my tears. My prayer is that I showed him the love of Jesus today… that something I said gave him a hope.

You see, everybody has a story! I know Steve’s story now… all because I felt compelled to help him… he ended up touching me today!

When I left him, I knew I had done what God wanted me to do! God put him in my path today… I know he did! I’ve never felt such a feeling to help someone as I did today. I was reminded again of how blessed I am! I have a vehicle that gets me from place to place, I have a roof over my head, clean clothes, money to buy a hot meal, running water, electricity, my health, a job, family, and friends! Sometimes God sends situations our way to remind us of how blessed we are! If you’ve read this far, please remember Steve in your prayers!

Yes, I have been blessed, God’s so good to me! Precious are His thoughts of you and me! There’s no way I could count them, there’s not enough time, so I’ll just thank Him for being so kind. God has been good, so good! I have been blessed!