Running-Head: 1

Case Study Of An Entrepreneur

Muhammad Ahsan

Software engineering (P-ll)

Third Semester (Morning)

Faculty Of Engineering

2k19/SWE/61

26-6-2020

Arifa Bhutto
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Introduction

Mark Zuckerberg is the founder of Facebook. He is considered a cultural icon because

he created an entirely new way to communicate via the internet. Mark Zuckerberg is co-

founder and CEO of the social-networking website Facebook, as well as one of the world's

youngest billionaires. Mark Zuckerberg co-founded the social-networking website Facebook out

of his college dorm room at Harvard University. Zuckerberg left college after his sophomore

year to concentrate on the site, the user base of which has grown to more than two billion

people, making Zuckerberg a billionaire many times over. The birth of Facebook was portrayed

in the 2010 film The Social Network.

Early Life and Education

Zuckerberg was born on May 14, 1984, in White Plains, New York, into a comfortable,

well-educated family. Zuckerberg’s father, Edward Zuckerberg, ran a dental practice attached to

the family's home. His mother, Karen, worked as a psychiatrist before the birth of the couple's

four children: Mark, Randi, Donna and Arielle. At very early age, when he was about 12, he

used Atari BASIC to create a messaging program, which he named “Zucknet.” His father used

this program in his dental office so that the receptionist could inform him of a new patient

without yelling across the room. The family also used Zucknet to communicate within the
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house. He also created games with his friends just for fun. "I had a bunch of friends who were

artists," he said.

To keep up with Zuckerberg's burgeoning interest in computers, his parents hired private

computer tutor David Newman to come to the house once a week and work with Zuckerberg.

Newman later told reporters that it was hard to stay ahead of the prodigy, who began taking

graduate courses at nearby Mercy College around this same time. Zuckerberg later studied

at Phillips Exeter Academy, an exclusive preparatory school in New Hampshire. There he showed

talent in fencing, becoming the captain of the school's team. He also excelled in literature,

earning a diploma in classics. Yet Zuckerberg remained fascinated by computers and continued

to work on developing new programs. While still in high school, he created an early version of

the music software Pandora, which he called Synapse.

Several companies—including AOL and Microsoft—expressed an interest in buying the

software, and hiring the teenager before graduation. He declined the offers.

After graduating from Exeter in 2002, Zuckerberg enrolled at Harvard University. After his

sophomore year, Zuckerberg dropped out of college to devote himself to his new company, Facebook, full

time. By his sophomore year at the Ivy League institution, he had developed a reputation as the

go-to software developer on campus. It was at that time that he built a program called

CourseMatch, which helped students choose their classes based on the course selections of other

users. He also invented Facemash, which compared the pictures of two students on campus and

allowed users to vote on which one was more attractive. The program became wildly popular,

but was later shut down by the school administration after it was deemed inappropriate. Based

on the buzz of his previous projects, three of his fellow students—Divya Narendra, and twins
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Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss—sought him out to work on an idea for a social networking site

they called Harvard Connection. This site was designed to use information from Harvard's student

networks in order to create a dating site for the Harvard elite.

Zuckerberg agreed to help with the project, but soon dropped out to work on his own

social networking site, The Facebook.

Facebook Founder

Zuckerberg and his friends Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverin created

The Facebook, a site that allowed users to create their own profiles, upload photos, and

communicate with other users. The group ran the site out of a dorm room at Harvard University

until June 2004. That year Zuckerberg dropped out of college and moved the company to Palo

Alto, California. By the end of 2004, Facebook had 1 million users. In 2005, Zuckerberg's

enterprise received a huge boost from the venture capital firm Accel Partners. Accel invested

$12.7 million into the network, which at the time was open only to Ivy League students.

Zuckerberg's company then granted access to other colleges, high school and international

schools, pushing the site's membership to more than 5.5 million users by December 2005. The

site began attracting the interest of other companies that wanted to advertise with the popular

social hub. Not wanting to sell out, Zuckerberg turned down offers from companies such as

Yahoo! and MTV Networks. Instead, he focused on expanding the site, opening up his project to

outside developers and adding more features. The headquarter of Facebook is situated at

Menlo Park, California, U.S. Facebook is considered one of the big five technology companies
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along with Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Google. Facebook offers other products and services

beyond its social networking platform, including Facebook Messenger, Facebook Watch,

and Facebook Portal. It also has acquired Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus, and has a 9.9%

stake in Jio Platforms. According to last year research 2019, there were accordingly 44,942

employees in Facebook Company Inc. Facebook has a market cap and net worth of $527 billion.

In May 2012, Facebook had its initial public offering, which raised $16 billion, making it the biggest

Internet IPO in history. After the initial success of the IPO, the Facebook stock price dropped

somewhat in the early days of trading, though Zuckerberg is expected to weather any ups and

downs in his company's market performance. In 2013, Facebook made the Fortune 500 list for

the first time—making Zuckerberg, at the age of 28, the youngest CEO on the list.
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Personal Wealth and A Husband

The negative PR around the 2016 election and Cambridge Analytical scandal seemingly

did little to slow the company's progress: Facebook saw its stock close at a record $203.23 on

July 6, 2018. The surge bumped Zuckerberg past Berkshire Hathaway chief Warren Buffett to

become the world's third-richest person, behind fellow tech titans Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates.

Any gains were wiped out when Facebook shares dropped a staggering 19 percent on July 26,

following an earnings report that revealed a failure to meet revenue expectations and slowing

user growth. Nearly $16 billion of Zuckerberg's personal fortune was erased in one day. The

stock rebounded, and Zuckerberg remains one of the world's wealthiest people. In 2019,

Forbes ranked Zuckerberg at No. 8 on its ‘Billionaires’ list—behind Microsoft founder Bill

Gates (No. 2) and ahead of Google co-founders Larry Page (No. 10) and Sergey Brin (No. 14).

The magazine estimated his net worth to be about $62.3 billion at the time.

Zuckerberg has been married to Priscilla Chan, a Chinese-American medical student he

met at Harvard, since 2012. The longtime couple tied the knot one day after Facebook’s IPO.

About 100 people gathered at the couple's Palo Alto, California home for the ceremony. The

guests thought they were there to celebrate Chan's graduation from medical school, but

instead they witnessed Zuckerberg and Chan exchange vows. Zuckerberg has two daughters,

Max, born on November 30, 2015, and August, born on August 28, 2017. The couple announced

they were expecting both of their children on Facebook. When Zuckerberg welcomed Max, he

announced he would be taking two months of paternity leave to spend with his family.
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Zuckerberg’s Motivation

Beyond the social interaction and privacy controls, Mark Zuckerberg also created

Facebook because he believed it could be a viable business. He got some start-up capital from

his friend Eduardo Saverin because he expected to be able to make money with his idea at

some point in the future. At the time, he did not anticipate how massively successful Facebook

would be, but it emerged as one of the biggest companies in the world today.

Zuckerberg’s Entrepreneurial Characteristics

While our parents are typically the ones to teach us life skills, there are others out there

who can provide lessons about life skills. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is one of these

people whose public experience taught me about what it really means to achieve success.

There are some sort of qualities or abilities that can be built to make a person’s personality an

idol for all the living ones. Like there are some characteristics in Mark Zuckerberg which made

them such a great entrepreneur and one of the richest person in the world, which are as

follows:
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Equanimity. This is a fancy way of saying that Zuckerberg doesn’t lose his cool when

he's under pressure or in a stressful situation. Instead, he calmly approaches even the most

difficult situations because anger doesn’t breed success -- it only serves to alienate or give the

impression that someone feels they don’t have control over a situation. Developing this

equanimity has helped improve my relationships with employees and colleagues while

providing a way to think more clearly about the critical problem or pressures in front of me.

Critical thinking. Zuckerberg has noted his interest in always going deeper with an issue

or idea in order to really make a difference, be disruptive and maximize the value. As he

once said, “I got my first computer in the 6th grade or so. As soon as I got it, I was interested in

finding out how it worked and how the programs worked and then figuring out how to write

programs at just deeper and deeper levels within the system.” I could see that success only

comes from taking the time to think more critically rather than just accepting the first idea that

comes to mind.

Problem-solving. Zuckerberg has always focused on solving problems. As he noted in

a biography about him, “The question I ask myself like almost every day is, 'Am I doing the most

important thing I could be doing?' Unless I feel like I'm working on the most important problem

that I can help with, then I'm not going to feel good about how I'm spending my time.” I knew

that, at the heart of every business I considered creating, there had to be a relevant problem

that needed solving to help a consumer or a business.

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Effective communication. While many leaders leave employee communication to

others on the team, Zuckerberg has always taken on this role himself. In creating a company

that increases communication and interaction between people, it makes sense that he would

also take this approach with his employees. Many of those who have worked at Facebook note

how he is always walking around, talking to everyone, asking questions and getting to know

them personally. When I tried this for myself, I realized how much more willing my team

members were to share what was going on, how they felt, and voice any ideas they had for

making changes. Keeping open communication with your team not only builds trust but can

also help you be a more effective leader.

Assertiveness. Zuckerberg is not interested in following or doing things on other

people’s terms. As he noted in a Wired Magazine interview, “Sometimes we are going to do

stuff that’s controversial, and we’re going to make mistakes. We have to be willing to take

risks.” It’s this attitude that proves how a product, service, company and brand can make

strides in completely changing an industry. Success doesn’t come from worrying about how

something will work; instead, you just have to jump in and do it.

Mindfulness: Zuckerberg doesn’t let his critics get to him. I learned that the ability to

ignore the noise around me has helped me to use the energy I would have wasted on worrying

about what others thought of me. I use it to fuel creativity, innovation and actions that have

furthered my business success. Taking a mindful approach to what you want to accomplish --

and blocking out the rest -- is critical.

Vision. In recent years, Zuckerberg has become more involved in shaping the global

business landscape, illustrating that he is more than just a “one-hit wonder.” His recent address
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at the United Nations noted the need to expand Internet access to developing nations,

illustrating his interest in the future of human rights and social issues. Zuckerberg has also met

with country leaders as part of his vision for shaping future generations and helping tackle

various global social problems. I value his leadership style and encourage those working in

technology to follow suit in taking on a bigger role in real-world issues, rather than relying on

politicians to do it for us.