Time magazine clicked “Like” on Facebook CEO Mark
Zuckerberg, naming him its 2010 Person of the Year. Previous tech luminaries to
make that list include Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, former Intel CEO Andy
Grove, and Microsoft magnate Bill Gates, who shared the honor with his wife
Melinda and U2 singer Bono.
“Facebook has merged with the social fabric of American
life, and not just American but human life: nearly half of all Americans have a
Facebook account, but 70 percent of Facebook users live outside the U.S.,”
reads Time’s
Dec. 15 article. “We have entered the Facebook age, and Mark Zuckerberg is
the man who brought us here.”
The article also describes Zuckerberg as possessing
“weapons-grade mental hardware” and self-control “so total that he drives an
Acura when he could afford a Bentley.” The 26-year-old Facebook CEO is also the
second-youngest Person of the Year, following Charles Lindbergh in 1927.
Even before Time’s announcement, Zuckerberg was well on his
way to becoming a cultural icon of sorts. Earlier this year, David Fincher’s
film “The Social
Network” portrayed him as a Machiavellian figure, backstabbing friends on
his way to making Facebook an Internet powerhouse. Written by Aaron Sorkin of
“West Wing” fame, who apparently based much of the script on Ben Mezrich’s book
“The Accidental Billionaires,” the film was vigorously derided as fiction by
Zuckerberg and his company spokespeople.
For more, read the eWeek article: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Is Time’s Person of the Year.
