While at Harvard, Zuckerberg started the social network, Facebook, his life would be changed forever. Unlike Bill Gates who brought people in to work on his projects, Zuckerberg did everything himself. He was known on campus as the software developer you wanted on your team. Many people referred to him as a genius, and based on this reputation, three of his fellow students asked him to work on a social networking site they called Harvard Connection. The site was designed to be used as a dating site for the Harvard elite. And while he initially agreed to work on the project, he later dropped out and started working on his own social networking site with his friends Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverin. Their site allowed users to create their own profiles, upload photos and connect with other users. They started running the site (originally called The Facebook) out of their dorm room. After his sophomore year in college, Zuckerberg dropped out to devote himself to Facebook full time. Even though he had a great platform to work on, Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth did not spike, however, all that would change. By the end of 2004, Facebook had one million users. In 2005, venture capital firm Accel Partners invested $12.7 million into the social network, which at the time was only open to Ivy League students. But thanks to the investment, they were able to expand and open to other colleges, international schools, and high schools. Their membership grew to over 5.5 million. As Facebook grew, Zuckerberg faced an intense legal battle. Remember the Harvard Connection mentioned above? Well, the students who asked Zuckerberg to help them with the project sued him, claiming he stole their idea. The ol’ Zuckster denied the claims at first, but then lawyers searched through his records and found incriminating messages that revealed he might have stolen the intellectual property of Harvard Connection. A $65 million settlement was reached between the two parties. While that was a large sum of money, it didn’t make a dent in Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth. He was will on his way to surpassing Jay Z, Kim Kardashian and even Michael Jordan But still, Zuckerberg is an extremely wealthy man. His net worth is estimated to be $62.3 billion, down $9 billion from his 2017 total of $71 billion. How tragic, right? We’ll see if he can recover in 2019. It’s insane to think someone could lose $9 BILLION in one year and still be up another $62 billion.
