Facebook Founder Returns to Harvard

Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg left Harvard University in 2004 to focus on the production and advancement of his globally established website.  However, the college-dropout made his return to the University on Monday with a new message to share: he’s hiring. 

The 27-year-old computer geek turned Internet pioneer was welcomed on campus with excitement during his first official visit back to Harvard since leaving for California’s Silicon Valley during his sophomore year. 

The casually dressed billionaire drew in quite the crowd, with so many students flocking to see him that campus officials were forced to set up barriers to separate him from his eager audience.

“We’re just getting started,” Zuckerberg said to reporters and about 250 students listening to his recruitment pitch. “The next five or 10 years are going to be about all the different products and industries that can be rethought.”

Zuckerberg noted that his company plans to expand, but needs talented workers to join his team to help him do so.

“There’s a lot of really smart people here and a lot of them are making decisions about where they’re going to work,” he said of his decision to recruit students from Cambridge, noting that Facebook could potentially open an office in the Boston area someday.

Facebook first began to expand outside Harvard’s ivy halls when the company moved to Palo Alto, CA in June 2004.  Since then, Facebook has grown to over 800 million users around the world, with more than 3,000 employees.

Harvard student Madeline Halimi, a freshman from Brooklyn, N.Y., noted how encouraging Zuckerberg’s story and rise to fame is.
 
“What’s really weird is wondering whether the person next to you will be the next person to invent something that changes the world,” Halimi said.

Zuckerberg was ranked ninth on Forbes’ Most Powerful People list in 2011.