Mark Zuckerberg Returns to Harvard to Get Honorary Degree after Dropping Out
Mark Zuckerberg has returned to Harvard University to give a graduation speech and receive an honorary degree.
The Facebook founder and world’s fifth-richest person, worth $62.3 billion, famously dropped out of Harvard after launching the global social-networking website.
Mark Zuckerberg, 33, called for students to “not only create new jobs, but create a new sense of purpose”.
Political experts think he may be positioning himself to run for office.
During his remarks on May 25, Mark Zuckerberg told graduates that “we live in an unstable time”.
“There’s pressure to turn inwards,” he said about those that feel left behind by increased globalization.
Photo Facebook
“This is the struggle of our time. The forces of freedom, openness and global community against the forces of authoritarianism, isolationism and nationalism.”
Mark Zuckerberg pointed to the dormitory where he launched Facebook, and remarked that meeting his wife, Priscilla, there was the best thing to happen to him at the university.
Before giving remarks, Mark Zuckerberg received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree during Harvard’s 366th graduation ceremony.
On May 24, he did a Facebook Live broadcast from his old dorm room.
“This is literally where I sat,” Mark Zuckerberg says, pointing to a small wooden desk and chair inside Kirkland House, which is due to be renovated over the summer.
“I had my little laptop here. And this is where I programmed Facebook,” he tells the camera.
During his commencement address, Mark Zuckerberg told students: “There is something wrong with our system when I can leave here and make billions of dollars in ten years when millions of students can’t afford to pay off their loans, let alone start a business.”
“When you don’t have the freedom to take your idea and turn it into a historic enterprise we all lose,” he continued.
Mark Zuckerberg told stories of meeting “children in juvenile detention and opioid addicts, who told me their lives could have turned out differently if they just had something to do”.
He appeared to get choked up at one point during a story about an high school student who feared he would not be able to enroll in university because he was an undocumented immigrant.
More than 1.9 billion people log onto Facebook every day.
Since its launch in 2004, Facebook has inspired many other social media competitors, including Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram.
In 2007, another Harvard drop-out, Bill Gates, returned for an honorary degree.
Bill Gates addressed students shortly after stepping down from the world’s largest software company, Microsoft, to launch to focus on his charity.