Facebook is the world’s largest social media company with over 2 billion users. It was founded in 2004 by students Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum and Dustin Moskovitz at Harvard University
It has become one of the most recognizable brands in the world. Facebook now owns Instagram and Whatsapp, which are hugely successful companies in their own right, but for this article we will only focus on Facebook.
The site has grown exponentially year over year from about 200 million active users in 2006 to over two billion today – surpassing a population larger than China or India! This rapid growth is due to continual innovation and the introduction of new features, as well as an open culture allowing developers to create their own applications within the Facebook ecosystem
The company’s headquarters are in Menlo Park, California, USA. It has over 30 offices worldwide, including Berlin, Dublin, Hyderabad and Seattle. It employs over 25,000. employees all over the world.
Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO, has a net worth of approximately $ 71 billion as of May 2018. This makes him the fifth richest person in the world, behind Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Bill Gates (Microsoft), Warren Buffet (Berkshire Hathaway) and Amancio Ortega (Zara).
The company has successfully passed through several major challenges over the past few years, including a serious data breach of 87 million users and increased pressure from regulators over user privacy and hate speech. However, none of these challenges had a significant impact on Facebook’s bottom line.
The company’s annual income is expected to double over the next five years thanks to a strong focus on video advertising (Facebook views over 100 million hours of video every day) as well as increased efforts to monetize WhatsApp and Instagram. This is a positive sign for investors who, after the scandals of recent years, were concerned about Facebook’s future profitability
Facebook’s most important functions for users:
- Connect with friends and family
- Organize events and schedule social gatherings
- Find your friends on the platform (and discover new people)
- Share photos, videos and status updates