Mark Zuckerberg: the world's most controversial person right now - Mark Zuckerberg is in the news for the worst reasons. The creator of Facebook had to defend himself before the United States Congress, against charges of illegal sale of users' data, misuse of advertising, and fake news. Zuckerberg has ensured that Facebook does not sell users' data and that all people are free to access, change, delete, and even take their data to another social network. The hearing took approximately five hours and left many questions unanswered regarding the protection of Facebook users' data. So who is Mark Zuckerberg? How did he manage to build his empire? To get to know a little better the man behind Facebook, we'll reveal some interesting facts about the life and work of Zuckerberg in the following gallery. Check it out!

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Early life - Mark Zuckerberg was born on May 14, 1984 in Dobbs Ferry, New York.

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Parents - He is the son of Edward and Karen Zuckerberg. His father is a dentist and his mother is a psychiatrist.

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Programming - Zuckerberg started programming when he was quite young. At the age of 12 he developed an instant messaging software. This software was used at his father's dentist's office so that he could communicate easily with his receptionist.

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Passion for programming - The owner of Facebook took a postgraduate course in computer science at Mercy College while he was still in high school.

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Genius? - In an effort to foster Zuckerberg's passion, his parents hired him a tutor to help him learn more about programming, but Mark was already far more advanced than his teacher! 

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High-end education - Mark Zuckerberg went to Phillips Exeter Academy High school – a prestigious secondary school where the tuition is more expensive than most universities in the United States.

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Personal information - According to Business Insider, when Mark created Facebook in 2004, he'd often talk about how he believed people were stupid for trusting sites such as Facebook with their personal information.

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Webcam tape - As The Guardian showed in 2016, Mark Zuckerberg puts tape over his webcam. This was revealed through a photo he shared on Instagram.

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Privacy - According to Trulia, the businessman spent $30 million in 2013 just to buy up all the houses in his neighborhood where he resides for extra privacy.

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Challenge - In 2011, Zuckerberg made a personal goal to eat only the animals he killed. A challenge reported in detail by Fortune.

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Facebook's color - Facebook's dominant color is blue because, as revealed in The New Yorker, Zuckerberg cannot see the colors red or green.

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People who don't matter? - In 2006, Mark Zuckerberg was named by CNN in their annual list of people who don't matter. Boy, were they wrong!

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Messaging? - In 2013, Zuckerberg launched a new controversial feature on Facebook: anyone who wanted to send him a personal message had to pay $100.

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Changing the job market - As reported by Valleywag, Mark Zuckerberg made so much money in 2013 that he made the average salary for a tech worker rise $80,000 in San Mateo County!

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Hacker - Zuckerberg was sued by three Harvard Crimson journalists after hacking into their e-mail accounts. Zuckerberg did this to learn about the details the newspaper had on him. How did he access the journalists' private e-mails? He used failed passwords typed into Facebook, and tried them on their personal e-mails!

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'Dislike' button - In 2014, one of the first questions Zuckerberg answered in a Q&A session on Facebook was about the possible existence of a dislike button on the social networking site. Mark said he did not think it would be a good idea for the Facebook world to have a 'do-not-like' button.

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A lost fortune - In 2004, Mark Zuckerberg offered one of his best friends the chance to quit college and help build Facebook with him. Joe Green, Zuckerberg's friend, declined. According to Fox News, Facebook's share would be worth $10 billion by 2012.

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Philanthropist - Mark donates a lot of money to charity and in 2013 was even the man who gave most that year. According to the Daily News, the creator of Facebook donated more than $970 million to charity.

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Fortune - According to Forbes, Zuckerberg currently has a net worth of more than $66 billion!

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Salary - Zuckerberg's base salary is a dollar per year – a  common practice in the world of billionaires. The money they have comes from the stocks they hold.

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Taking a course in...? - Along with computer science, Zuckerberg was also majoring in psychology at Harvard before dropping out of the Ivy League school. 

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Clothing choice - In 2014, Mark Zuckerberg explained why he wears the same grey T-shirt everyday. He explained that he'd rather focus on making important choices that matter in his life, rather than worrying about what to wear each day.

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Religion - In his biography entitled 'Mark Zuckerberg: The Face Behind Facebook and Social Networking' Zuckerberg reveals that he is an atheist and does not believe in deities.

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Constantly monitored - The site zuckerbergfiles.org is a place where several people keep a record of everything Zuckerberg ever said publicly, in an attempt to figure out the future plans of Facebook's CEO. The files are large and are available to anyone wishing to purchase.

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Facebook origins - Facebook was called Facemash and only served as an internal social network for Harvard University students, where they could vote on the attractiveness of their peers. 

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Not a fan - Zuckerberg did not like the movie 'The Social Network' and has spoken out several times saying that many of the details in the film are inaccurate.

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Google - Zuckerberg was one of the first people to create a Google+ account. He supports the idea of ​​several successful social networks and in 2011 was even the most followed person on Google+!

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Microsoft - When he was finishing high school, Zuckerberg created, along with Adam D'Angelo (founder of Quora), an app that could perceive the users' favorite songs, based on their choices. It was a kind of previous version of Spotify. Microsoft tried to purchase this product and give jobs to its creators, but Zuckerberg and D'Angelo refused and preferred to patent the app and continue their studies.

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Personal assistant - As Entrepreneur revealed in 2016, Mark Zuckerberg has a highly-sophisticated personal assistance system in his house that uses the voice of actor Morgan Freeman.

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