Becoming Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder, was born in 1984 and grew up in a middle-class family in Dobbs Ferry, New York, about 20 miles north of Manhattan. He learned programming basics from his dad, and became obsessed with connecting people online. Before Zuckerberg created Facebook in his Harvard dorm room, he created CourseMatch, which allowed Harvard students to post their social and academic interests online, and then FaceMash. To launch FaceMash, Zuckerberg hacked into Harvard’s residence houses and uploaded student pictures, violating their privacy and US copyright laws. Harvard put him on probation, but this led to the founding of thefacebook.com on February 4, 2004.

Explosive Growth

“Facebook’s success was, from the beginning, a conscious pursuit of constant growth.” In February, three other top universities quickly followed thefacebook.com – Columbia, Stanford and Yale. Six more universities followed in March. More universities joined in April, including the universities of Virginia and Illinois. Cross-school connections flourished. By the end of 2004, Facebook had about one million users across US colleges. In September...