Facebook(META)

The Breakthrough Moment

Facebook originated on the evening of October 28, 2003, when Mark Zuckerberg created 'Facemash,' a Hot or Not-style site comparing photos of Harvard students. He hacked into Harvard's residential house networks to access student ID photos, causing controversy and nearly getting expelled. The site crashed Harvard's network from traffic and was shut down within days, but demonstrated the appetite for social networking at Harvard. Inspired by this success and demand for an online version of Harvard's printed 'face books,' Zuckerberg started coding 'TheFacebook' on January 11, 2004, in his Kirkland House dorm room. He recruited roommates Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, plus Eduardo Saverin for business guidance and Andrew McCollum for design. Zuckerberg registered thefacebook.com domain on January 11, 2004, for $35. The site launched on February 4, 2004, at 12 AM from Zuckerberg's dorm room. Within 24 hours, 1,200 Harvard students signed up. Within a month, over half of Harvard undergraduates had accounts. The name evolved from Harvard's 'face books' - physical directories with student photos distributed to incoming freshmen. The original mission was simply to help Harvard students connect with classmates, but it quickly expanded beyond Harvard when students from other universities demanded access. The defining moment came in June 2004 when Zuckerberg, Moskovitz, and others moved to Palo Alto, turning down summer internships to work on Facebook full-time in a rented house at 819 La Jennifer Way.