Feature Modest lifestyle of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and 15 interesting facts about him

It is sometimes believed that someone's financial worth can be deduced from the car they drive. Although somewhat popular, this assertion has been rubbished by the world's youngest billionaire, co-founder and CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg.
Some of his contemporaries or multi-millionaires and billionaires drive Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Rolls Royces, Aston Martins and Bugatti Veyrons, which come with hefty price tags running into hundreds of thousands of dollars and even millions.
Zuckerberg, 29, and currently worth $19bn, according to Forbes, drives an Acura TSX and a Honda Fit, which cost about $30,000 and $18,000, respectively.
His Acura TSX, is an entry level luxury sedan which uses a 2.4 litre in-line 4 cylinder engine. It can churn out 201 hp and 172 lb-ft torque and has a 5 -speed automatic transmission, which comes with steering-wheel paddle shifters for optional manual shifting. The car is quite packed with luxury features like leather interior, automatic climate control, a seven-speaker sound system, Satellite Radio, Bluetooth and HandsFreeLink.
Zuckerberg was born on May 14, 1984 in White Plains, New York, to Edward Zuckerberg, a dentist, and Karen (née Kempner), a psychiatrist. Even though, he was raised Jewish, Zuckerberg had since described himself as an atheist. As a junior student, Zuckerberg won prizes in science (mathematics, astronomy and physics) and classical studies. While most of his mates were busy playing games as young students, Zuckerberg was creating them.
In his early teens he created a music player named Synapse – as a school project – using some help from a friend, which used artificial intelligence to understand one's taste in music and created a playlist accordingly. Software bigwigs like Microsoft and AOL tried to buy it and even recruit Mark. But he refused both. Instead, he went to Harvard in 2002. On February 4, 2004, with the help of his room mates, Dutsin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, and using the finance provided by another friend, Eduardo Saverin, he launched what was then called, The Facebook. It was an instant hit, and soon made Mark the next big thing.
On September 14, 2012, Facebook hit 1 billion users, a remarkable feat for a company that started in Zuckerberg's dormitory room while he was at Harvard. Zuckerberg later dropped out of Harvard in his second year to concentrate on his project.
If you think that Zuckerberg's home will suggest his enormous wealth, you are mistaken. The American computer programmer and Internet entrepreneur owns a house in Palo Alto , California, which is his first property investment. But prior to this, he had always stayed in rented apartment. Zuckerberg lives in the house with his wife, Priscilla Chan. The young billionaire is known to be a fan of renting and a relatively modest lifestyle.
The house sits in the area of 5,1617-square-foot, was originally built in 1903. Since the house is of historic times, it boasts gorgeous historical elements, like sash windows, coffered ceilings, French doors, and deep porches. The 5-bedroom house was bought for $7m. Although the house is grand, it is still considered modest, compared to the residences of Zuckerberg's other IT contemporaries.
Zuckerberg and his wife reportedly bought a new house in San Francisco for almost $10m recently, but the couple have neither confirmed nor denied the mansion, said to be undergoing reconstruction.
The work includes a $65,000 kitchen and bathroom remodel, a $60,000 greenhouse and the replacement of an exterior wall and stairway, plus seismic upgrades.
Zuckerberg does not own a private jet, but Facebook authorised its CEO and COO to use private aircraft for business purposes to maximise such executives' productive time and ensure their quick availability. On some occasions, the jet could also be used for personal purposes.
On May 19, 2012, Zuckerberg got married to his long time college sweetheart, Priscilla, in an astonishing ceremony at his Palo Alto home in California . The propitious wedding was kept behind the curtains in such a way that even the guests thought they were attending Priscilla's graduation from the Univeristy of California.
Zuckerberg announced the nuptial on his social networking site 'Facebook', via a status update, posting his wedding picture which was liked by more than 280,000 people. Just a day before the wedding, Facebook's fortune rose to £12bn in the stock market.
Facebook Inc CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has begun a campaign to make the United States government more transparent in its surveillance programmes.
Zuckerberg said more openness regarding the secretive programmes were required because they had been hurting users' trust in Internet companies such as his.
During a meeting with members of Congress last week in Washington, the 29-year-old social media billionaire urged the US government to inform the public about its requests for data from Internet companies.
He said, "What I can tell from the data that I see at Facebook is that I think the more transparency and communication the government could do about how they're requesting the data from us, the better everyone would feel about it.
"From reading in the media, you couldn't get a sense whether the number of requests that the government makes is closer to a thousand or closer to a 100 million. I think the more transparency the government has, the better folks will feel."
15 interesting facts about Zuckerberg
1. Type @[4:0] in a Facebook comment, and Mark Zuckerberg's name will appear.
2. You can't block Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook.
3. Facebook is blue because Zuckerberg has a red-green colour-blindness.
4. In 2009, Zuckerberg wore a tie for the entire year as a symbol of how serious and important the year was, following the recession that began in 2008.
5. He says he's not that interested in money but in connecting the world.
6. He's spent a year trying to eat only meat that he kills.
7. By the time he turned 13, he had already created a basic computer network for his family dubbed "Zucknet," which allowed the computers in the family and his father's dental office to send messages to each other by pinging.
8. He designed his wife's wedding ring.
9. At a party one Friday night, Zuckerberg met Priscilla, a Chinese American from Boston , who later became his wife.
10. To be able to communicate with Priscilla's family members, Zuckerberg started to learn Chinese in 2010.
11. Zuckerberg's first car was a Subaru Forester SUV.
12. Mark Zuckerberg is also on Twitter as @finkd where he has over 150,000 followers but has posted only 19 tweets in the last three and a half years.
13. Zuckerberg has also created a few computer games.
14. His favourite musicians include Daft Punk, Lady Gaga, Shakira and Rihanna.
15. Eduardo Saverin, one of the four co-founders of Facebook had provided the $1000 seed capital to start Facebook.
Zuckerberg wants more transparency in Internet surveillance
Sources: www.sfgate.com; www.bornrich.com; www.celebritycarsblog.com; ibnlive.in.com; www.washingtonpost.com; en.wikipedia.com