Zuckerberg
In life, grace is Divine but preparation is human. Alfred Lord Tennyson once said: ‘’The height that great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in night.’’
Preparation may not guarantee a win, but it sure puts you in position for one. The rise and rise story of Mark Zuckerberg has become a point of study. One of America’s greatest minds and former president, Abraham Lincoln once said, “I will study and prepare myself, and someday my chance will come.” The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his time; when it comes and when opportunity comes, it is too late to prepare. We are living in a world where most people have the will to win but few with the will to prepare to win.
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity”-Seneca
In a country where youths have blatant disdain and disregard for due process and adequate preparation in their bid for quick wealth, it has become imperative to highlight the secret of a young man that rose from obscurity in a college dormitory in Harvard to becoming one of the most celebrated young minds of all times. The emergence and trailblazing story of the Facebook whiz kid is both inspirational and impactful. His geometric and meteoric rise on the Forbes rating is both unprecedented and rare for a young man of his age.
While his colleagues were reveling in youthful exuberance and living in a world that no longer exists, he was thinking of creating a new world and a new order where people can be more connected and accessible. While the world population was increasingly becoming a threat and counted as a global liability, one man saw the opportunity to connect together a disconnected world!
Benjamin Disraeli once said, “The greatest good you can do to others is not just to show your riches but to reveal to them their own”. Mark Zuckerberg was in Nigeria some few days ago to show Nigerians how endowed they are in potentials and also to let us see the plethora of opportunities that abound around us. His admiration for the blooming Nigerian entertainment industry knew no bounds as he spontaneously described it as a goldmine even when this truth had become elusive in a nation blessed with talents that are both latent and obvious.
Even highly placed celebrities thronged out to have a glimpse of the American lad that has made the world more connected than he met it. In the midst of highly rated celebrities, Mark became even more conspicuous as he ultimately ended up becoming the cynosure of all eyes. A man that is famously noted for his disarming simplicity, and often goes around with his custom made T-Shirt and a pair of jeans. He has overly made a point in passing that many of the so-called Nigerian millionaires and billionaires have refused to heed to the saying that: “A man starts living the day he stops living to impress others and until you live a life that is truly yours, you have not lived.”
In this piece I will unsparingly share one of the most fascinating secrets of Zuckerberg that has become so elusive among Nigerian youths. Most people share and bask in his ‘glory’ but sympathetically, few actually know his story.
Mark Zuckerberg is the biggest gainer in Forbes’ 2016 billionaires list of the world’s richest people, moving up 10 spots from last year to claim the ranking as the world’s sixth richest person. The tech executive and social media leader achieved the feat with total net worth that Forbes estimated at $44.6 billion, up from $33.4 billion in the 2015 ranking, making him the youngest billionaire ever at the age of 32 according to Forbes rating. Presently, the technology guru has become Bill Gates’ nightmare in Forbes rating.
Chance favours only the prepared mind – Louis Pasteur
T. Alan Armstrong gave a vivid secret of champions when he said, “Champions do not become champions when they win the event, but in the hours, weeks, months and years they spend preparing for it. The victorious performance itself is merely the demonstration of their championship character”.
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is the founder and CEO of Facebook which he started in his college dorm room in 2004 with roommates Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. Mark’s parent noted in his early teenage years his unquenchable appetite for the computers, and to keep up with Mark’s unusual interest in computers, his parents hired soft-ware developer tutor, David Newman to come to the house once a week and train the young Mark. To an ignorant observer, it might have looked like good money being put to bad use but the success recorded by Zuckerberg in this line and the ease he has brought to global communication justify his father’s wise investment.
“The opportunity you can never see is the one you never prepared for”-Anonymous
Zuckerberg attended Harvard University and studied computer science before founding Facebook. While at Harvard, Mark developed a reputation as the go-to software developer on campus. It was at that time that he built a programme called course match, which helped students choose their classes based on the course selections of other users. He also invented face mash, a website that compared students’ dorm photos side-by-side on campus and allowed users to vote on which one was more attractive. The programme became wildly popular but was later shut down by the school administration after it was deemed inappropriate.
Harvard administration was not amused, and Zuckerberg faced subsequent disciplinary action. Less than three months after, he launched Facebook. Facebook has over one billion active users; the social network boasted 1.65 billion monthly users as of March 2016, up 15 per cent from a year earlier. Mark Zuckerberg probably has more influence on information technology than any one person alive.
I would like to use this platform to reach out to the Minister of Science and Technology to institute a crack team of young minds that are technology savvy and I.T entrepreneurs to look into the opportunities that abound in the nation. Nigeria should be a technology hub for Africa; we have the potentials, human resources and wherewithal to earn foreign exchange in the I.T sector. We must not be casual with Mark Zuckerberg’s visit. He can be convinced to use Nigeria as a launch pad for his vision for Africa.
Preparation, I have often said, is rightly two-thirds of any venture. – Amelia Earhart
Benjamin Franklin once said, “People don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan”. Mark’s awesome story testifies to the fact that winning is inevitable when it is preceded with preparation. I want to reach out to the teeming Nigerian youths out there to invest in PROCESS and PREPARATION. Discover the reason why you were born because if you don’t find your place in life, you will be displaced! Steve Jobs once said, “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.” I want the youths to get their priorities right in life and never look down on their potentials.
Many were unaware that while Mark was here in Nigeria, he was broken by the news of a failed project that went up in flames, but that could not deter this great man from having fun, eating Nigerian-made delicacies and even taking a selfie with the President.