Mark Zuckerberg Becomes World's Third-Richest Person (bloomberg.com)

Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has overtaken Warren Buffett as the world's third-richest person, reports Bloomberg. Zuckerberg only trails Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. From the report: It's the first time that the three wealthiest people on the ranking made their fortunes from technology. Zuckerberg, 34, is now worth $81.6 billion, about $373 million more than Buffett, the 87-year-old chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway. Zuckerberg's ascent has been driven by investors' continued embrace of Facebook, the social-network giant that shook off the fallout from a data-privacy crisis that hammered its shares, sending them to an eight-month low of $152.22 on March 27. The stock closed Friday at a record $203.23.

Comments

Third riches business person, you mean

[magarity]

Let's see, Kim Ill owns his whole country outright, then Xi and Putin pretty much de facto own theirs... then there's the members of the junta who own Myanmar, etc, etc.

Re:Third riches business person, you mean

[thePsychologist]

This post isn't totally a troll. Total worth in terms of stocks isn't the only way to measure wealth. There could be those not on this top list that have assets not easily measured or even legal that might make them comparable.

Precarious position?

[Peter P Peters]

Seems like an awfully precarious position for Zuckerberg to be in since his company effectively has one product which could easily be copied. And this is the bit I don't get get, where are the FB clones? Most people I know hate FB and would switch to another similar product if it were available, but there simply are none. Every competitor tried to do something different and failed (hello Google Plus) .
All that most people are after is the simple connect with 'friends', share a newsfeed format, and messaging but without the ads and the spying. Can't someone make something like this and put us out of FB misery forever? How hard is to build something just like the original FB (without the videos, the trending news, the autoplay ads etc) but with a different logo and colour scheme?

Re:Precarious position?

[swillden]

And this is the bit I don't get get, where are the FB clones? Most people I know hate FB and would switch to another similar product if it were available, but there simply are none.

Two words: Network effect. Everyone uses Facebook because everyone else uses Facebook.

Every competitor tried to do something different and failed (hello Google Plus).

That's because the only way to break the network effect is to offer an alternative that isn't a clone, but is actually significantly better in some compelling way. It has to offer something that will entice people to leave their friends and family. If what you offer is exactly the same as Facebook, then what's the incentive for people to move?

All that most people are after is the simple connect with 'friends', share a newsfeed format, and messaging but without the ads and the spying.

Most people don't care so much about "the ads and the spying". And even if they did... how would this alternative social network be funded if it didn't use targeted advertising? To support billions of users you need hundreds of thousands of servers, terabits of bandwidth and the operations and engineering staff to build and support all of it.

ill gotten gains..

[GrBear]

And who said crime doesn't pay.

Yes, yes, I know he's not doing anything that's prosecutable as illegal.. but it sure the hell feels that way.

Only respect I've seen /. give Mark Zuckerberg

[Trax3001BBS]

Is he married an ugly woman after he got the money.