Chapter 1
10
A Computer Prodigy
M
ark Elliot Zuckerberg was born on May 14, 1984, in Dobbs Ferry,
New York. Mark’s father, Edward, was a dentist known as “Painless
Dr. Z.” He specialized in treating patients who were afraid of going to the
dentist; Dr. Z’s motto was “We cater to cowards.”
4
Zuckerberg’s mother,
Karen, was originally a psychiatrist, but she quit her job to raise her chil-
dren and manage her husband’s dental practice. Edward calls Karen “my
most overqualified employee.”
5
Edward grew up in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.
He excelled in math and science and wanted to work with computers
However, in the early 1970s, before the advent of personal computers,
studying computer science did not seem practical. As Edward explains:
Growing up Jewish in New York City, if you had half a brain, your
parents wanted you to be a doctor or a dentist. I was actually a
numbers guy. But back then, there really weren’t a lot of jobs in
computer programming. There were these big, room-size com-
puters that you read about. . . . That was not the “appropriate use
of my time,” my parents would have said. It wasn’t for the smart
boys.
6
Giving in to his parent’s wishes, Edward went to dental college in
1975. He and Karen were married in 1979, and a year later they bought
a big house in Dobbs Ferry, a small, affluent village in Westchester
County, 25 miles (40 km) north of New York City. For years, Edward
commuted between his dental practice in Brooklyn and his home in
Dobbs Ferry.
