Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has officially passed Warren Buffet, becoming the third richest person while holding a net worth of $81.6 billion. The 2.4% increase value of Facebook shares resulted in Zuckerberg’s ladder climbing to the third richest. Mark also increased his pocket by $1.7 billion after the news of Instagram’s new feature, Instagram Television. Facebook began back in 2004 when Mark Zuckerberg was in college at Harvard. He originally planned on using the now infamous social media for students to match the names of their classmates with faces. Then in May of 2012, he launched Facebook publicly and currently still owns seventeen percent of the stock. Over Mark and his wife Pricilla’s lifetime, they plan on giving away 99 percent of their Facebook stake, which they have also pledged on.
Warren Buffet, Chief Executive Officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., slowly decreased his net worth by making several donations to worthy causes. At one point in time, he was in fact the richest man but due to all his donations, he gave away 71% of his wealth.
While Zuckerberg is feeling money mighty, he is still lingering behind Bill Gates, who is the principal founder of Microsoft, and Jeff Bezos, who is the CEO of Amazon.
This is the first time in history that the top three richest people have made their fortunes from strictly technology. In Zuckerberg’s case, most of his ascent has been produced by investors who have continually embraced Facebook. The Bloomberg Index has tracked technology fortunes and came to the conclusion that these fortunes make up a fifth of five trillion dollars in wealth.
It’s no surprise that tech stocks have been very popular in the market this year. Some other companies such as Netflix has more than doubled in the stock market. As well as Amazon who has increased by 46%. According to Lindsey Bell, she expects stocks to help lead the market even higher over the next year.
Although many thought Zuckerberg would take a hit due to his scandal of sharing Facebook’s users’ data, it in fact, hardly took a hit according Cambridge Analytica.
Facebook’s CEO held his annual conference for developers on Tuesday. This conference was held in San Jose, California. He began by assuring several thousand developers that despite the challenges thrown at him recently, the company is focused on their ability to secure users’ data. His main goal is to “bring people together” while including developers in his mission.
“We all have challenges to address, but we need that optimism too,” said Zuckerberg.
