Mark Zuckerberg, the ‘face of Facebook’, must indeed be smiling these days. Not only does the company which he co-founded in 2004 continue to expand it’s clientele, but the value of Facebook and his personal wealth, and therefore his – literally – disposable income, continue to rise.
Statistics seldom tell a complete story, but Zuckerberg’s and Facebook’s figures are genuinely impressive, beginning with Mark dropping out of prestigious Harvard University in 2004 because he was so interested in computing and confident of his project which was to become Facebook, that he didn’t see the need to complete his degree course; disagreements with university administration may have contributed to his decision.
As of late 2015, the social network site Facebook is recording over one billion users a day, and Zuckerberg’s fortune approaches $45 billion, ranking him as the seventh richest person in the world according to the authoritative Forbes magazine, a meteoric career to date for a person still just 31 years old. Significantly, Forbes rates Zuckerberg’s ‘self-made’ score very highly too, as indeed are almost all the top 10 richest in the world.
Of particular significance is that Facebook has been immune to the volatility of stock exchanges in 2015, enabling a steady rise in the value of company assets. Of course this situation has also benefited the majority share holder, Mark Zuckerberg to the extent that while others in the Forbes Top Ten Richest have seen their fortunes eroded somewhat, Mark’s has risen by almost $7 billion in the year.
Interestingly, Mark and wife Priscilla are two of the most generous philanthropists, joining with fellow ‘top tenners’ Bill Gates and Warren Buffett in promising to donate (‘dispose of’) a reputed 50 per cent of their fortune to charitable causes, as evidenced this year alone by a donation of $100 million to the Newark, New Jersey public school system, and $5 million to fund education for struggling immigrants.
Clearly Zuckerberg and Facebook are rather more than just social animals: long may they smile.
