History of Facebook Timeline

PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel became Facebook's first outside investor, providing $500,000 in angel funding for roughly 10% of the company. This investment gave Facebook the capital to move to Palo Alto and grow beyond campus networks.

Image source: Peter Thiel

Venture capital firm Accel Partners invested $12.7 million in Facebook, valuing the young company at about $98 million. The funding accelerated hiring and infrastructure growth as Facebook expanded to high schools.

Image source: Accel (company)

Microsoft purchased a 1.6% stake in Facebook for $240 million, valuing the company at approximately $15 billion. The deal also made Microsoft Facebook's exclusive advertising partner for banner ads.

Image source: Microsoft

Former Google executive Sheryl Sandberg joined Facebook as Chief Operating Officer, bringing operational discipline and building the advertising business that would make the company profitable.

Image source: Sheryl Sandberg

Facebook acquired real-time feed aggregator FriendFeed for approximately $50 million, largely in stock. Several FriendFeed engineers went on to play key roles in developing Facebook's products.

Facebook bought photo-sharing app Instagram, which had only 13 employees, for approximately $1 billion in cash and stock. The acquisition proved enormously valuable as Instagram grew into a major revenue driver.

Image source: Instagram

Facebook went public on the NASDAQ under ticker FB in one of the largest IPOs in tech history, raising $16 billion and valuing the company at $104 billion. Technical glitches marred the first day of trading.

Image source: Initial public offering of Facebook

Facebook announced its largest acquisition ever, buying messaging app WhatsApp for $19 billion in cash and stock. The deal secured Facebook's position in mobile messaging worldwide.

Image source: WhatsApp

Facebook purchased virtual reality startup Oculus VR for $2 billion, signaling Zuckerberg's long-term bet on immersive computing and the metaverse years before the concept entered mainstream discussion.

Image source: Reality Labs

Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook Inc. would rename itself Meta Platforms, reflecting a strategic pivot toward building the metaverse. The Facebook app continued under the Meta corporate umbrella.

Facebook introduced News Feed and Mini-Feed, automatically aggregating friends' activities into a personalized stream. Though initially met with user protests over privacy, the feature became central to how people consumed content on the platform.

Image source: Web feed

Facebook opened its platform to third-party developers, allowing them to build applications on top of the social graph. Apps like FarmVille later flourished, transforming Facebook into an app ecosystem.

Image source: Facebook Platform

Facebook launched the Like button, letting users quickly express approval of posts and comments. It became one of the most iconic features of the platform and a fundamental unit of engagement across the web.

Image source: Like button

Facebook unveiled Libra, a proposed global digital currency backed by a consortium of companies. The project faced immediate regulatory backlash worldwide and was eventually rebranded as Diem before being wound down.

Image source: Diem (digital currency)

Facebook settled a lawsuit with ConnectU founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra, who claimed Zuckerberg stole their idea. The settlement reportedly included cash and stock worth tens of millions of dollars.

Image source: ConnectU

David Fincher's film 'The Social Network,' dramatizing Facebook's founding and early legal battles, premiered to critical acclaim. It won three Academy Awards and shaped public perception of Mark Zuckerberg and the company's origins.

Image source: The Social Network

Reports revealed that political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica had harvested personal data from up to 87 million Facebook users without consent. The scandal triggered global outrage, regulatory scrutiny, and a record FTC fine.

Mark Zuckerberg testified before US Senate and House committees over two days about privacy, data misuse, and election interference. The hearings marked an unprecedented moment of accountability for the social media giant.

Image source: Mark Zuckerberg

The US Federal Trade Commission imposed a $5 billion fine on Facebook for privacy violations related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the largest penalty ever assessed against a tech company at the time.

Image source: Federal Trade Commission

A configuration error severed Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp from the internet for nearly six hours, disrupting billions of users and businesses and highlighting the platforms' critical role in global communication.

Image source: 2021 Facebook outage