Did Anyone Doubt That Facebook Would Be a Success?

The editors at Business 2.0 magazine were probably trying to be innovative and controversial in 2006 when they came up with their list of "10 People Who Don't Matter." The business leaders they selected earned hefty salaries and boasted impressive titles, but the magazine felt that their best days were behind them, even going so far as to call them "the people you can safely snub at conferences." Making a notable appearance on the list was Mark Zuckerberg, the then 22-year-old founder of Facebook. The magazine chided him for reportedly turning down a $750 million USD buyout offer in 2005, as he was holding out for as much as $2 billion USD.

Turns out it was Business 2.0 that didn’t matter much. The magazine went out of business in October 2007. As for Zuckerberg, the 32-year-old Facebook CEO’s stake in the now publicly held company was $54.5 billion USD as of September 2016.

Doing things that matter:

• Zuckerberg and four fellow Harvard students launched Facebook from their dorm rooms in 2004.
• Since 2010, Time magazine has consistently put Zuckerberg on its list of the 100 wealthiest and most influential people in the world.
• In December 2012, Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, said they would give the majority of their wealth over the course of their lives to “advancing human potential and promoting equality.” In September 2016, the couple ambitiously pledged to give $3 billion USD to rid the world of disease.