The International Innovator
Nov 9th, 2011 by kevmason
I guarantee that within the last hour, if not right now, you’ve been on the world’s most popular website: Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg is innovation. He had brought the simple social networking idea to a new level: connecting the world together. With the technology we have today, the world is already a lot smaller than it was 50 years ago. But with Facebook, Zuckerberg has made it that much smaller.
Source: Forbes
Most people our age have used it just as a social media device; uploading photos, chatting with friends, etc. However when I watched David Fichner’s movie on the creation of Facebook, “The Social Network” (2010), I didn’t understand how the original idea of a “university network” could have worked. That is, until I came to UBC. I began using it for communication for group projects more than I did talking with friends. I used it to connect with commuter students while I stayed in residence. After seeing how Facebook was “originally used”, I was able to see how ingenious the idea was. Facebook wasn’t about being a simple networking site, it was about connecting people together.
Zuckerberg (along with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates for classic examples) is the definition of entrepreneur. As the QuickMBA article states, “an entrepreneur is a person of very high aptitude who pioneers change”. They create high amounts of wealth, innovation, and do so in a very short period of time. Facebook became a multi-million dollar business within 5 years. Jobs created the i-series which lead to Apple’s turn-around success. And Gates made the dream of having a peronalized home computer a reality. All of these people have changed the world because of their ideas (and because of their success they have attained a high amount of wealth/power). These are living (or recently deceased) examples of modern innovators. To be more specific, life changing entrepreneurs.