15 Surprising Facts About 19-Year-Old Mark Zuckerberg And Early Facebook

  While Google-stalking Mark Zuckerberg, we stumbled across a 2004 interview he did with Current Magazine. "The creator of thefacebook.com -- now at almost 300 schools and attracting one million users -- is currently on leave from Harvard," the interview starts.
Zuckerberg was asked about his morning routine, whether or not Facebook helped him attract women, and if he preferred beer or mixed-drinks.

 

Every morning, 19-year-old Zuckerberg woke up at...

Various times depending on his meeting schedule. More often than not, he pulled all-nighters and would stay awake for days at a time.
"I keep programmer time sometimes...programmers tend to stay up really late and work when everyone else is asleep. So it's not really uncommon for me to stay up until 6 or 8 in the morning," Zuckerberg told Current.
"But the business world does not operate between 5 pm and 8 am, so that requires some waking up for."

For breakfast, Zuckerberg would eat...

Nothing. Teenage Zuckerberg said he usually didn't eat breakfast. "The only time I eat breakfast is when I have meetings that early in the morning.  Usually it's a late lunch and then a late dinner and then a second dinner at Jack in the Box."

In high school, Zuckerberg played two sports. They were...

Tennis and crew. "Preppy sports," he said.
And, of course, he programmed.

Zuckerberg thought middle school gym class was...

"Sweet!" Zuckerberg said he played three varsity sports at his public middle school.
"I actually used to be athletic."

Zuckerberg's favorite gadget was...

A Sony VAIO mini computer. "We named it Tinkerbell," said Zuckerberg.

If Mark Zuckerberg could have had dinner with anyone, dead or alive, it would have been...

Image: valleywagprime via Flickr

Achilles. Young Zuckerberg said he'd reach across the table and quote the movie Troy, "Now you know who you are fighting."

When going out with friends, young Zuckerberg preferred to party at...

College parties over bars. "I live right next to Stanford, so I go to parties there," he said.

If the underage Mark Zuckerberg could have had beer or a mixed drink, he'd have picked...

Beer (but he claimed he didn't drink). He also said his friends made fun of him for not having a fake ID. "[They’d be] like, 'You can make websites but you can’t make a fake ID?'"

Zuckerberg started "Thefacebook" because Harvard was...

A "fairly unfriendly place." To make up for it, Zuckerberg said he "wanted one online directory where all students could be listed."

When asked if Facebook helped him get women, Zuckerberg replied...

"It helps my friends pick up girls." He says Facebook did improve his social life. It helped him throw an impromptu party with UCLA students he didn't know.

Zuckerberg launched Facebook at Ivy League schools first because...

It's where Harvard students' friends were most likely to overlap.  Zuckerberg claimed it wasn't to be elitist. "We had a launch plan to enter into other colleges based on where friends would be most likely to overlap, so the site spread organically based on that model and now we operate on a broad spectrum of campuses," he said.

While on leave from Harvard, Zuckerberg rented a house near Stanford. To pay for it, Zuckerberg...

Used minimal banner ads on Facebook to cover the cost of staff, running the site, and the summer home. "We hate banner ads...lately we've been putting thought into other advertising systems that would be less offensive.  Right now we put up what we need...it's not that cheap -- we have to make $40,000 a month or something, but it works."

Zuckerberg was surprised that Facebook users...

Image: Paul Adams

Didn't complain much about being stalked. "It's surprising, but we have actually received far less complaints about stalking than we otherwise would have expected," says Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg didn't like that Facebook made people...

 

Antisocial. "It's not unusual for us to receive an email from somebody saying, "I spend all of my time on your website and now I have less of a social life,'" said Zuckerberg.
"We would much rather have people meet people through the website than stay at home on a Friday night reading other people's profiles."

Young Zuckerberg thought Facebook was successful because...

It made an online community on top of a physical community. No social network had done that before. "We don't view the site as an online community -- we built it as a directory that is reinforcing a physical community," he said.  "What exists on the site is a mirror image of what exists in real life."