30 Things Mark Zuckerberg Accomplished Before Turning 30

Check out the Facebook founder's achievements on his milestone birthday.

ByABC News
May 14, 2014, 4:07 PM
Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook attends Day 3 of TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2013 at San Francisco Design Center in this Sept. 11, 2013, file photo.
Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook attends Day 3 of TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2013 at San Francisco Design Center in this Sept. 11, 2013, file photo.
Steve Jennings/Getty Images for TechCrunch

May 14, 2014— -- intro: Mark Zuckerberg is worth nearly one billion dollars for every year he’s been alive.

Not too shabby for a guy who dropped out of Harvard his sophomore year to run a little thing called Facebook.

As Zuckerberg blows out 30 candles on his cake today, here are 30 things he’s already accomplished.

quicklist: 1title: He's Richtext: Forbes estimates Zuckerberg’s net worth at $26.6 billion.

quicklist: 2title: Relationship Statustext: Some people hit 30 and worry about finding a spouse. Zuck took care of that in his 20s.

quicklist: 3title: And She's Not Just Anyonetext: Before she was a doctor and he was a billionaire, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg met at Harvard.media: 23700425

quicklist: 4title: He's A Parent ... Sort Oftext: The couple is already puppy parents to an adorable Hungarian sheepdog named Beast, who even has a Facebook profile. Could kids be next?

quicklist: 5title: Home Sweet Hometext: Privacy has a price tag -- and Zuckerberg can certainly afford it. To create his own mega-compound, Zuckerberg last year bought four homes for $30 million, one of which sold for $14 million, near his own $7 million estate in Palo Alto, Calif.

quicklist: 6title: New Vocabularytext: He brought "unfriend" into the vernacular.

quicklist: 7title: He Stood Up to Two Big Guystext: Most people wouldn't go head to head with the "Winklevii" -- strapping, 6-foot-5 identical twins.

quicklist: 8title: Redefined CEO Attiretext: Even as his wealth ballooned, Zuckerberg didn’t stray from his wardrobe staples – T-shirts and hoodies.

quicklist: 9title: Huge Acquisitionstext: Facebook snatched up Instagram and Oculus Rift, among others, in the past few years. What will Zuckerberg and his team buy next?

quicklist: 10title: Movie Startext: He’s already been played by Jesse Eisenberg in "The Social Network," a movie that has taken some creative liberties about the story of the founding of Facebook.

quicklist: 11title: Saturday Night Livetext: And he even confronted Eisenberg in an SNL appearance.

quicklist: 12title: The Simpsonstext: Zuckerberg even guest starred as himself on an episode of "The Simpsons."

quicklist: 13title: Philanthropytext: Zuckerberg pledged $100 million to Newark’s troubled schools system in 2010.

quicklist: 14title: 'In' With Oprahtext: And when he did it, he broke the news to fellow billionaire and philanthropist Oprah Winfrey on her show.

quicklist: 15title: 1 Billion Userstext: Born in a Harvard dorm room, Facebook hit 1 billion users in 2012.

quicklist: 16title: Connecting the Worldtext: Zuckerberg and Facebook have joined a group of other tech titans to help find a way to bring the Internet to the world’s two-thirds unwired people.

quicklist: 17title: Facebook Goes Publictext:18 That same year, the company also went public. The IPO was lackluster, but Zuckerberg said he found a way to leverage the attention of critics as a positive.

"This is a perverse thing, personally, but I would rather be in the cycle where people are underestimating us," he said, according to Forbes. "It gives us latitude to go out and make big bets that excite and amaze people."

quicklist: 18title: Reunited -- And It Feels So Goodtext: Facebook has connected long-lost friends and relatives, resulting in some incredibly emotional reunions.

quicklist: 19title: On the Flip Side...text: He's also (indirectly) helped bring people back into our lives who we'd rather avoid, like ex-boyfriends.

quicklist: 20title: Changed the Way We Take Photostext: Selfies have become huge, and a lot of that has to do with Facebook profile photos.

quicklist: 21title: And Define Relationshipstext: Couples now have to decide whether they want to make their relationship "Facebook official."

quicklist: 22title: He Got Us to Open Uptext: ...In an electronic way. Everyone has at least that one friend who shares what they ate for lunch or their marathon training plan.

quicklist: 23title: Friend Envytext: And in turn, helped spur a new phenomenon: FOMO, the fear of missing out on something your friends are doing.

quicklist: 24title: He's Called the Presidenttext: And Zuckerberg isn't afraid to speak his mind, either.

quicklist: 25title: And Met World Leaderstext: In one of his few public Facebook photos, Zuckerberg is seen shaking hands with Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev.media: 23700738

quicklist: 26title: (Half) Marathon Mantext: Zuckerberg completed 13.1 miles for charity in 2012, along with some of his Facebook colleagues.

quicklist: 27title: He's An Uncletext: That counts as an accomplishment! Zuckerberg's sister, Randi, gave birth to son Asher in 2011.

quicklist: 28title: King of the Nerdstext: Zuckerberg makes being geeky cool and has inspired tons of other innovators to follow in his footsteps.media: 23700558

quicklist: 29title: Mature Outlooktext: Zuckerberg's 20s were colorful, but as he approached 30 last month, he revealed a mature new outlook.

"My goal is to build a culture of loving the people we serve," he said.

quicklist: 30title: He Helps Us Remember Our Friends' Birthdaystext: Happy 30th Birthday, Mark Zuckerberg!