Mark Zuckerberg’s father offered him McDonald’s franchise as an alternative to Harvard

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s father had offered him to invest in McDonald’s franchise before he opted for Harvard and eventually dropped out of it. Mark’s sister Randi Zuckerberg told an American news network that their father, Edward Zuckerberg, offered his son and each of the three sisters an option to either going to college or running a franchise.

After Zuckerberg started Facebook in his dorm at Harvard University, his parents said he should probably have taken the McDonald’s franchise money if he wanted a business, said Randi. She added that, however, they thought Facebook might be the second-best option. Zuckerberg is now the fourth richest person in the world with a total net worth of $90.8 billion, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Interest in computers at an early age

Born to Karen and Edward Zuckerberg in White Plains of New York, Mark Zuckerberg was brought up in Dobbs Ferry, a small Westchester County village about 21 miles north of Midtown Manhattan. The Facebook CEO developed an interest in computers in the early years and at around 12 years of age Zuckerberg developed a messaging program based on Atari BASIC which he named “Zucknet”. 

Read: Mark Zuckerberg Wanted To Remove Trump's Post In 2015 But Facebook Stopped Him: Report

The software program is considered as a primitive version of AOL’s instant messenger which allowed all the computers of his house and father’s dental office to communicate with each other. In 2002, Zuckerberg got enrolled in Harvard and developed “Facemash” during his sophomore year which was eventually shut down by the University. 

He started working on a new website called “The Facebook” in 2004 and dropped out of Harvard later that year to relocate to Silicon Valley. He became the prominent face of Silicon Valley after the unimaginable success of Facebook Inc, the company which went on to acquire WhatsApp and Instagram. 

Read: Mark Zuckerberg Loses $7 Billion After Companies Boycott Facebook Ads

Read: Facebook To Review Content Policies After Mark Zuckerberg Criticised Over Trump Posts