Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is an American co-finder, president and Chief Executive Officer of Facebook; a site for social network. Zuckerberg together with his classmates Chris Hughes, Dustin Moskovitz and Eduardo Saverin co-founded the social network while they were studying at Harvard University in 2004.
The site became a success being used by people all over the world. This became a great achievement of Zuckerberg because through facebook, he did not only gained popularity but he became paper billionaire at a early age of 24. In 2010, Zuckerberg was ranked among top 35 richest Americans by Forbes.
At the age of 26, he owned wealth worth $7 billion which gave him the chance to be ranked among richest Americans. In 2010 Zuckerberg was also named in Time magazine as “Person of the Year (McDevitt 2010).”At the beginning of this year, Zuckerberg possessed personal wealth worth $17.5 billion.
Zuckerberg’s achievements are as a result of strong personality that he possesses. Zuckerberg’s prowess in computer is not questionable; it is a unique trait that he possesses. Zuckerberg developed interest in computers when he was very young, about 12 years old. At this age, Zuckerberg managed to use Atari BASIC to formulate a program which he named Zucknet for messaging. The program was also used by the father in his dental office for messaging.
The whole family also used the program within the house for communication. Zuckerberg also created computer games when he was 12 years old. According to Allport, a person’s trait usually predicts his behaviours and can also establish the cause of some actions (Allport 1960).
A person’s trait can also develop as a major function of learning which makes them easily adapt to social circumstances when they try to achieve their needs. Zuckerberg possessed strong personality traits such as cardinal trait which is a trait that is dominant in a person’s life which revolves around them.
Cardinal trait usually dominates everything in a person’s life especially everything that they do. This explains why Zuckerberg became an expert in computers that made him develop Facebook, computer games and Zucknet at an early age. Zuckerberg also possessed central traits which are qualities that mainly characterize his personal daily interactions.
His intelligence is one of such traits. This is also one of the reasons why Zuckerberg managed to create mp3 programs when studied at school. This program drew several offers from Microsoft and Yahoo; however Zuckerberg turned Yahoo down because he wanted to retained possession of the program. He instead sold a small portion of his company to Microsoft for $240 million which implied that his company had a value of about $15 billion (McDevitt 2010).
However, many people undermined him for the sale of part of the company as they thought he did it at a small amount. This means that Zuckerburg’s programs are highly valued in America and that is why most business people expected him to sell them at a higher price. Central traits also bring out the honest in Zuckerberg when he decided to contribute $100 million to help students in New Jersey schools. He was given credit for this action which brought out humanity in him.
Zuckerberg also donated a huge amount of money to Diaspora which is a web server opened to everyone. In December 2010, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett together with Zuckerberg signed to donate to charity half of their possessions. This was called “Giving Pledge (McDevitt 2010).” They took their precious time to also invite other wealthy people in America to donate 50% of their wealth to charity to help those in need.
This suggests the theory of humanist which mainly emphasizes free will and also individual experience when it comes to development one’s personality (HJelle & Ziegler1992). After Zuckerberg had immersed sizeable fortune through Facebook, he showed that he was human enough and that is why he used millions of his money to fund a huge variety of philanthropic foundations.
This theory also emphasizes self-actualization concept which is an instinctive requirement for personal growth which acts as behaviour motivator (Friedman & Schustack 2011). Zuckerberg can be described as a person who possesses high level of thoughtfulness based on his ability to create many programs in a computer which depicted his prowess in computer.
He is a person who is goal-directed. This is why Zuckerberg managed to achieve more through his high knowledge in computers. He did not through away his potential which he discovered as a child when he developed Zucknet. Zuckerberg is person with imagination and strong insight following his achievements as a young person. He is more of an open person since he had a wide range of interest in computers ranging from computer games to programs. Zuckerberg also found Education foundation to help educate American children.
In conclusion, Zuckerberg managed to become a successful person in life because he possessed strong personality traits such as cardinal trait and central traits. After Zuckerberg had immersed sizeable fortune through his hard work, he managed to help other people by taking part in charity giving where he contributed huge amount of his health. This brought out humanity in him.
References
Allport, G. (1960). Pattern and Growth in Personality. New York: Harcourt College Pub.
Friedman, H. & Schustack, M. (2011). Personality: classic theories and modern research. New York: Allyn & Bacon Publishers.
HJelle, L. & Ziegler, D. (1992). Personality Theories: Basic Assumptions, Research, and Applications. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company.
McDevitt, C. (2010). What We Learned About Mark Zuckerberg This Week. New York: Journal of Business.