Ten-Year Billionaire: Mark Zuckerberg
My 2011 challenge is to become a vegetarian and only eat meat if I kill the animal myself. The reason for this is that I feel lucky for having such a great life. In order to practice thankfulness, I want to be more connected to the food I eat and the animals that give their lives so I can eat them. Mark Zuckerberg, January 1, 2011
There are certain business leaders who make impact on their companies and often on the world of business because of their philosophies, action, and businesses they lead. Among the more recent top performers is Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, who took an idea and transformed it into a billion-dollar empire in less than 10 years. To gain some new insights into how Zuckerberg leveraged his modest concept into the world's most popular social media network, this paper provides a review of the relevant literature concerning his businesses, how he got started and three major business challenges he managed to overcome in establishing Facebook. An analysis of Zuckerberg's leadership style and discussion concerning how he has adapted to cultural differences and how he operates the business effectively in global markets is followed by an evaluation of Zuckerberg's theory of business leadership, management, and methods for motivating individual and group behavior. Finally, a discussion concerning how this business leader has made an impact on the world through his vision, business, and through other areas is followed by a summary of the research and important findings in the conclusion.
Mark Zuckerberg's Beginnings and Challenges
According to one of his growing number of biographers, "Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, was born in 1984. He is the son of a dentist and has three sisters" (p. In reality, Zuckerberg's rise to fame and fortune was not a rags-to-riches story. After all, the young man had a lot going for him even before he created Facebook, with a degree of computer science from Harvard University and the ability to speak Mandarin Chinese, but Zuckerberg identified a need and developed a timely response to it where others failed. More importantly, he quickly learned how to make money -- lots of it -- with his innovative social media network. For example, the editors of New Statesmen recently named Zuckerberg as one of the "50 people who matter today," and observed that, "In 2008 Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, was named the world's youngest billionaire, with a net worth of $4 billion from his 24% share of the company -- not bad for a 26-year-old. Zuckerberg created the website with his Harvard room-mates in 2004 and it now has 500 million active users" (The 50 people who matter today, 2010, p. 33). This designation is congruent with Zuckerberg's current status as the richest entrepreneur today as shown in Table 2 below.
Table 2
Mark Zuckerberg's Ranking in Top Ten Richest Entrepreneurs
Rank
Web site
Age
Net Worth
1
Mark Zuckerberg
Facebook
28
$13.5 Billion
2
Andrew Gower
Runescape
30
$650 Million
3
Chad Hurley
Youtube
30
$300 Million
4
Blake Ross and David Hyatt
Mozilla
22
$120 Million
5
Andrew Michael
Fast Hosts
29
$110 Million
6
Angelo Sotira
Deviant ART
26
$75 Million
7
John Vechey
PopCap Games
28
$60 Million
8
Alexander Levin
Image Shack
23
$56 Million
9
Jake Nickell
Threadless
28
$50 Million
10
Greg Tseng and Johann Schleier-Smith
Tagged
28
$45 Million
Source: http:/ / www.retireat21.com/top-young-entrepreneurs
Since its founding in 2004, Facebook has experienced meteoric growth, but its beginnings were fairly rocky and one of the first business challenges faced by Zuckerberg was the need to expand membership beyond the original Harvard-student only format. For example, Edosomwan, Prakasan, Kouame, Watson and Seymour (2011) report that, "Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg and others when he was a student at Harvard; though when the site was initially launched, it was restricted to Harvard students only" (p. 80). The next challenge faced by Zuckerberg was to move the Facebook platform off of the Harvard resources and into the private sector, which took place in 2006 (Edosomwan et al., 2011). In this regard, Edosomwan and his colleagues confirm that, "Later the [Facebook membership] privilege was extended to high school students and later to everyone that is 13 years or older" (p. 80). Although Zuckerberg likely did not expect that 500,000,000 people 13 years and older would flock to his creation by early 2012 at the time, he has already managed to persuade more than 6.25% of the world's population to join together on Facebook and millions more are joining each month (Edosomwan et al., 2011). These trends are reflected in Table 1 and depicted graphically in Figure 1 below.
hosting the 22nd FIFA World Cup in 2022 in Qatar. It is the first football tournament of an international level that will be taking place in the Middle East. Ever since Qatar won the bid for this project, the construction of the venues has been started. However, the main focus of this paper is to explore the logistics aspect of this mega project. Some important definitions of the terms
Cup 2014 How Does the Influx of Money from World Cup 2014 Impact the Hospitality Sector in Brazil? The hospitality sector in Brazil is being deeply affected by the influx of money from the announcement of the 2014 World Cup (Brazil, 2010). Even though the event is not taking place until next year, changes are already taking place in Brazil. Stadiums will be one of the largest issues for the hospitality
Qatar World Cup There is little doubt that the Doha skyline is one of the world's most impressive; Qatar is a great place to work if you are an architect. But if you are one of the people building those towers, Qatar may not be such a great place to work. The same goes for any of the two million foreign workers in the country -- some 94.1% of all employed
It's well-known that soccer, like religion, can provoke violence like hooliganism and tramplings at overcrowded, large stadiums, and this is what many Americans assume it is all about. "But soccer has also proved unique in its ability to bridge differences and overturn national prejudices. The fact that the World Cup could even take place in South Korea and in Japan, as it did in 2002, was a victory for tolerance
Brazil Hospitality and the 2014 World Cup Brazil is in 2014 expected to host an estimated 50,000 soccer fans from all over the globe. The event is to last for four weeks. The fans are expected to stay in the hotels, eat in restaurants, shop and visit Brazil's many attractions. Hosting an event of this magnitude is a challenge especially for a developing economy like Brazil. However, with careful planning the
2010 world cup South Africa South African Economy and the World cup There is no doubt in the fact that the world has become a global village as technology has progressed and travelling has become easier. People now travel from country to country with an ease as if they used to visit a relative. The globalization has gifted the people the ease to travel miles across to another country to attend and
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now