Mark Elliot Zuckerberg

Mark Elliot Zuckerberg was born on May 14, 1984, in White Plains, New York, into a
comfortable, well-educated family, and raised in the nearby village of Dobbs Ferry. His
father, Edward Zuckerberg, ran a dental practice attached to the family's home. His
mother, Karen, worked as a psychiatrist before the birth of the couple's four children
Mark, Randi, Donna and Arielle.

Zuckerberg developed an interest in computers at an early age; when he was about 12, he
used Atari BASIC to create a messaging program he named "Zucknet." His father used the
program in his dental office, so that the receptionist could inform him of a new patient
without yelling across the room. The family also used Zucknet to communicate within the
house. Together with his friends, he also created computer games just for fun. "I had a
bunch of friends who were artists," he said. "They'd come over, draw stuff, and I'd build a
game out of it."

To keep up with Mark's burgeoning interest in computers, his parents hired private
computer tutor David Newman to come to the house once a week and work with Mark.
Newman later told reporters that it was hard to stay ahead of the prodigy, who began
taking graduate courses at nearby Mercy College around this same time.
After graduating from Exeter in 2002, Zuckerberg enrolled at Harvard University. By his
sophomore year at the ivy league institution, he had developed a reputation as the go-to
software developer on campus. It was at that time that he built a program called
CourseMatch, which helped students choose their classes based on the course selections
of other users. He also invented Facemash, which compared the pictures of two students
on campus and allowed users to vote on which one was more attractive. The program
became wildly popular, but was later shut down by the school administration after it was
deemed inappropriate.

Zuckerberg and his friends created a site that allowed users to create their own profiles,
upload photos, and communicate with other users. The group ran the sitefirst called The
Facebookout of a dorm room at Harvard until June 2004. After his sophomore year,
Zuckerberg dropped out of college to devote himself to Facebook full time, moving the
company to Palo Alto, California. By the end of 2004, Facebook had 1 million users.
In 2005, Zuckerberg's enterprise received a huge boost from the venture capital firm Accel
Partners. Accel invested $12.7 million into the network, which at the time was open only to
ivy league students. Zuckerberg's company then granted access to other colleges, high
school and international schools, pushing the site's membership to more than 5.5 million
users by December 2005. The site then began attracting the interest of other companies,
who wanted to advertize with the popular social hub. Not wanting to sell out, Zuckerberg
turned down offers from companies such as Yahoo! and MTV Networks. Instead, he
focused on expanding the site, opening up his project to outside developers and adding
more features

"Bill Gates

William Henry "Bill" Gates, III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business
magnate, philanthropist, investor, computer programmer, and inventor. Gates is
the former chief executive and chairman of Microsoft, the worlds largest personal-
computersoftware company, which he co-founded with Paul Allen.
He is consistently ranked in the Forbes list of the world's wealthiest people

and was
the wealthiest overall from 1995 to 2009excluding 2008, when he was ranked
third; in 2011 he was the wealthiest American and the world's second wealthiest
person. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires List, Gates became the world's
richest person again in May 2013, a position that he last held on the list in 2007.
He held the position until Carlos Slim reclaimed it in July 2014. As of September
2014, he is the second richest person in the world.
During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of CEO and chief software
architect, he was also the largest individual shareholder up until May 2014. He has
also authored and co-authored several books.
Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution.
Gates has been criticized for his business tactics, which have been considered
anti-competitive, an opinion which has in some cases been upheld by judicial
courts. In the later stages of his career, Gates has pursued a number of
philanthropic endeavors, donating large amounts of money to various charitable
organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation, established in 2000.
Gates stepped down as chief executive officer of Microsoft in January 2000. He
remained as chairman and created the position of chief software architect for
himself. In June 2006, Gates announced that he would be transitioning from full-
time work at Microsoft to part-time work, and full-time work at the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation. He gradually transferred his duties to Ray Ozzie, chief software
architect, and Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer. Gates's last full-
time day at Microsoft was June 27, 2008. He stepped down as chairman of
Microsoft in February 2014, taking on a new post as technology advisor to support
newly appointed CEO Satya Nadella

"Steve Jobs
Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs; February 24, 1955 October 5, 2011) was an
American entrepreneur, marketer, and inventor, who was the co-founder, chairman, and
CEO of Apple Inc. Through Apple, he is widely recognized as a charismatic and design-
driven pioneer of the personal computer revolution and for his influential career in the
computer and consumer electronicsfields, transforming "one industry after another, from
computers and smartphones to music and movies." Jobs also co-founded and served as
chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios; he became a member of the board of directors
of The Walt Disney Company in 2006, when Disney acquired Pixar. Jobs was among the
first to see the commercial potential of Xerox PARC's mouse-driven graphical user
interface, which led to the creation of the Apple Lisa and, a year later, the Macintosh. He
also played a role in introducing theLaserWriter, one of the first widely available laser
printers, to the market.
After a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, Jobs left Apple and
founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher-
education and business markets. In 1986, he acquired the computer graphics division
of Lucasfilm, which was spun off as Pixar. He was credited in Toy Story (1995) as an
executive producer. He served as CEO and majority shareholder until Disney's purchase
of Pixar in 2006. In 1996, after Apple had failed to deliver its operating
system, Copland, Gil Amelio turned to NeXT Computer, and the NeXTSTEP platform
became the foundation for the Mac OS X. Jobs returned to Apple as an advisor, and took
control of the company as an interim CEO. Jobs brought Apple from near bankruptcy to
profitability by 1998.
As the new CEO of the company, Jobs oversaw the development of
the iMac, iTunes, iPod, iPhone, and iPad, and on the services side, the company's Apple
Retail Stores, iTunes Store and the App Store. The success of these products and
services provided several years of stable financial returns, and propelled Apple to become
the world's most valuable publicly traded company in 2011.
In 2003, Jobs was diagnosed with a pancreas neuroendocrine tumor. Though it was
initially treated, he reported a hormone imbalance, underwent a liver transplant in 2009,
and appeared progressively thinner as his health declined. On medical leave for most of
2011, Jobs resigned in August that year, and was elected Chairman of the Board. He died
of respiratory arrest related to the tumor on October 5, 2011.
Jobs received a number of honors and public recognition for his influence in the
technology and music industries. He has been referred to as "legendary", a "futurist" and a
"visionary", and has been described as the "Father of the Digital Revolution," a "master of
innovation," "the master evangelist of the digital age" and a "design perfectionist.