13 years after quitting, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gets honorary Harvard degree

Pic courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/zuck

New York: Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg returned to Harvard,  the school he dropped out of to start the pioneering social network, telling graduates that it is up to their generation to create a purpose for today's world, to care about others, to fight inequality and strengthen the global community.

Zuckerberg said he would never have been able to risk leaving the elite Ivy League school if he had not known that his family would have been able to support him if he failed.

Zuckerberg received an honorary doctoral degree from the university, along with nine other people including the actress Judi Dench, the composer John Williams (known for "Star Wars," ''Harry Potter" and many other scores) and Somali human rights activist and physician Hawa Abdi Dhiblawe.

"If I get through this speech today it'll be the first time I actually finish something here at Harvard," Zuckerberg said.

Zuckerberg, who like the graduates is a millennial, started Facebook in his dorm room in 2004. What began as a closed networking site for Harvard students is now a global communications force with nearly 2 billion members.

Zuckerberg follows another famous Harvard dropout, Bill Gates, who spoke before its graduates a decade ago. Apple co- founder Steve Jobs, who dropped out of Reed College in Oregon, gave Stanford's commencement speech in 2005, reminding students to "stay hungry, stay foolish."

With Agency Inputs