The World’s Youngest Billionaire
Apr 27
Name: Mark Zuckerberg
Age: 23
Fortune: self made
Source: Facebook; Net Worth: $1.5 bil 
Country Of Citizenship: United States
Residence: Palo Alto, California
Marital Status: single,
Education: Harvard University, Drop Out
Tech’s newest golden boy founded addictive social networking site Facebook in February 2004 from his Harvard dorm room. Left school for Silicon Valley later that year; scored initial $500,000 investment from PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel. Venture firms soon swooned, among them Accel Partners and Greylock Partners.
Today Facebook boasts 66 million active users. Estimated annual sales: $150 million. Expanding beyond being a college-only message system and photo album; now courting users to 55,000 different high school, business and city networks.
Problems with privacy: installed “News Feed” in 2006; program automatically alerted users’ friends to changes they made to their profiles. Outcry over privacy concerns led company to backpedal; Zuckerberg issued apology. Similar controversy ensued after release of Facebook Beacon late last year; program automatically alerted friends of activities on selected outside sites, including eBay and Fandango.
Microsoft bought 1.6% stake for $240 million last October; deal led many to suggest the company is worth $15 billion. Some analysts—and even a few Facebook investors—suggest the company’s value is far lower.
(brought to you by Forbes)
