We know Mark Zuckerberg as the college dropout who created the world’s most popular social networking site. While for sure he remains as the founder of Facebook, he is no longer Zuck the college dropout, but Zuck the Harvard graduate.
Recently, Zuck came back to Harvard to march together with members of Class 2017 on their graduation day. He picked up his honorary degree 12 years after he left the Ivy League school to focus on Facebook.
Source: Associated Press
This happened even when Zuck, upon dropping out in November 2005, told the university paper The Crimson that “I’m not coming back”.
But it appears that he later promised his mother, Karen, that he will come back to Harvard and get his degree. Zuck confirmed this in a Facebook post right after he got the honors.
Posted with a photo together with his parents, Zuck said, “Mom, I always told you I’d come back and get my degree.”
Source: Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook
Not only did he receive his honorary degree, Mark Zuckerberg also delivered the university’s commencement address. He praised the students for accomplishing “something I never could”.
“If I get through this speech, it’ll be the first time I actually finish something at Harvard,” he said.
Source: Getty Images
While at Harvard, Zuck took the opportunity and returned to his dormitory room where he built Facebook in 2004 as a computer science student. There, he built the social networking platform alongside Dustin Moskovitz, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, and Chris Hughes.
“The Facebook” was exclusive to Harvard students at first and eventually to other students of Ivy League schools before it hit the world by storm.
Now, Facebook is the world’s fourth most valuable brand according to Forbes magazine. Meanwhile, Bloomberg Billionaires Index proclaimed Mark Zuckerberg as the world’s fifth richest person with an approximate fortune of $64.2 billion.
This is not the first time that Harvard conferred a college dropout-billionaire an honorary degree. It conferred one to Bill Gates, who left the university in 1975 to found Microsoft, in 2007.
Source: Telegraph UK
