Friendly Faces A Harvard student creates a new way for students to network and revolutionizes how this generation's classmates connect.

Vital Stats: Mark Zuckerberg, 21, of Facebook in PaloAlto, California

Company: Social networking site for college and highschool students

Campus Communication: Programming since sixth grade,Zuckerberg caused a sensation while he was a Harvard sophomore.Always looking to ease the transfer of information between groups,he created an online technology that allowed Harvard students topost profiles, browse or search for fellow students, view uploadedpictures, and share their affiliations and interests. Within twoweeks, two-thirds of Harvard students signed up. Three weeks afterthe February 2004 launch, Zuckerberg opened it up to Columbia,Stanford and Yale; now it's available to students (and somealumni) at more than 2,100 colleges and universitiesinternationally and 22,000 U.S. high schools.

Higher Learning: His original intent was not to create abusiness, but Zuckerberg's success prompted him to take anindefinite leave from Harvard to focus on Facebook. He's stilllearning plenty: "In the academic world, it was this'question everything' mentality--never commit to anythingthat you can't rigorously prove [is] correct," saysZuckerberg. "In the business world, you have to believe inwhat you're doing and stick to that. That's been aninteresting change."

Fulfilling Potential: With more than 7 million users,two-thirds of whom log on daily, Facebook continues to grow withthe influx of new users and added features. Says Zuckerberg,"Our vision is to increase information flow and help peopleexpress themselves." The soaring popularity of Facebook seemsto have piqued the interest of potential buyers--its currentvaluation is $2 billion. At press time, the company still remainedin the hands of Zuckerberg, who has found his entrepreneurialexperience "awesome."

"Most people have to work a lot of years to build somethingcool," he says. "I'm in a differentposition."