His father, although not an
engineer, was an early computer enthusiast. Running a dental office he had a
vision that computers would change the way people communicate. But for the time
being he used them for taking scanning people’s mouths. At age 10 Mark was
bored with school. His father noticed and introduced him to his Altair
computer. Together they wrote a program that connected the computer at home
with the computer in the office. They called it “ZuckNet.” It alerted doctor Z,
as he is known, when a patient arrived. It worked better than having the
receptionist yell, “Patient here!”
Mark quickly learned
everything his father knew about computers. He started studying with a
tutor. Then he started taking a college class in computer science while still
in middle school. He read books. But he really started learning to code when he
transferred to a private school where he met a programming whiz kid Adam
D’Angelo. Together they started hacking. They made an artificially intelligent
music player that learned the user’s music taste. Soon Microsoft found out
about it and offered money and a job. Zuckerberg was not interested.
There is a running theme in
how Mark Zuckerberg started. He would be offered millions and even billions at
least 11 times since then, and every time he walked away. He might have a
bigger plan every time.
No comments:
Post a Comment