Considering that you couldn’t turn on your TV, go to the movies or hit the bookstore this year without seeing Mark Zuckerberg, it’s absolutely fitting that the 26-year-old founder of Facebook was named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year.”
At the same time it’s astonishing that, at such an early stage of his career, Zuckerberg finds himself on the receiving end of an honor that places him in some remarkable company.
He is the second-youngest to receive the nod, edged out only by 25-year-old Charles Lindbergh in 1927. He becomes only the second recipient from Silicon Valley, following Andy Grove in 1997 — who was honored almost 30 years after founding Intel. Among other tech titans, the list is a short one: Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com in 1999 and Bill Gates in 2005 (though for his charitable works).