While an undergraduate at Harvard, Mark had already demonstrated an ability to attract highly talented people to work with him, including Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, and Eduardo Saverin, who became the co-founders of Facebook. He is also the only entrepreneur that I know that had a major motion picture depicting his early career completed before he turned 30! Rather than be depressed by comparisons to Mark Zuckerberg,

 

I hope that those of you who have the right stuff are energized and motivated by this background summary! As stated, this is an extraordinary example that led to the creation of billions of dollars of wealth at a very early age. You certainly don’t need all of these attributes and life successes to become a fundable CEO. The important takeaway is that you must begin your CEO aspirations with an honest personal audit of what you have accomplished and what you plan to accomplish in order to earn the trust of investors.

 

And it is never too early or too late to start that process. Although some individuals are born leaders, investors will most likely invest in firms whose CEOs have a prior track of doing much of what they are expected to do in the future.