6: Facebook was an accident?

In 2003, Mark Zuckerberg was a second year student studying computer science at Harvard University.  He was ambitious, and his drive sometimes pushed him to take actions of questionable ethics in order to complete a project.  In October of his second year, he developed a website called Facemash.  This website was for photo comparison, and users would rate 2 side-by-side pictures as "hot" or "not."  It was only functioning for a few days before executives from Harvard shut it down.  They shut it down because Zuckerberg populated the website by hacking into Harvard's security network and using all of the student ID photos as his website's photos.  He faced serious charges, as well as potential expulsion, but eventually all charges were dropped.

In 2004, Zuckerberg created a new website and called it TheFacebook.  The website was a social networking site for Harvard students only, named after directories that all students received.  It was launched in February, and again he was accused of being unethical in its production.  3 other students accused him of stealing their idea that they had named HarvardConnection.  They filed a lawsuit, but the issue was handled outside of the courtroom.

TheFacebook was slowly expanded and other universities began to gain access.  Later that year, Sean Parker became the company's president and changed the name to Facebook, as it is known today.  In 2006, Accel Partners invested $12.7 million into the company.  This allowed them to expand to high school students, and eventually anyone with a valid email address over the age of 13 was allowed to join the site later that year.  In 2009, Facebook was named the world's most used social networking service.

According to an article about Facebook's history, the site's profits, as well as Zuckerberg's antics, led to him becoming the world's youngest multi-billionaire.  He has made many charitable donations and pledges.  However, some people are still unsure about the ethics of his rise to fame.  While making donations and helping the needy is noble, his actions since 2003 have not all been completely honest or favorable.  Whether people agree with his methods or not, he created an extremely successful company that made him billions of dollars.  Either way, he has come a long way from his Facemash idea to a global social networking site.