Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, who is already worth about $3 billion on paper, is the embodiment of the new media generation. He does not own a television and he does not buy newspapers, preferring to read them online instead.

Like the rest of the new media billionaire set, he lives in Silicon Valley. He also says that he feels old at 23.

Mr Zuckerberg set up Facebook, the social-networking site that has become as much a cultural phenomenon as the Rubik’s cube in the 1980s, when he was a psychology undergraduate at Harvard in 2004. The idea was to publish university yearbooks online so that students and graduates could keep in touch with their university friends, sharing photos and other information. When it was founded, membership was limited to students. Last year Mr Zuckerberg opened up membership and Facebook now has more than 49 million members.

After a talk from another Harvard dropout, Bill Gates, Mr Zuckerberg was inspired to use the university’s liberal policy of suspending studies to develop Facebook.

During a summer vacation, which he spent in a rented room in California, he managed to secure seed capital from Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal, in the belief that, even if Facebook failed, he could always go back to complete his studies.

Mr Zuckerberg was born with a silver mouse in his hand. He grew up in a wealthy New York suburb, the son of a psychiatrist and a dentist. He was bright enough to win a place at the Phillips Exeter Academy, the Harvard of American boarding schools.

Communication is the key to Mr Zuckerberg’s vision for Facebook. He argues that people get most of their information from two sources: traditional media such as newspapers; and social networks, such as family groups, work or friends. The former has already been digitised, and the second, Facebook, is carving out its own role.

In recent interviews, Mr Zuckerberg comes across as a confident, if stereotypical Silicon Valley type, wearing T-shirts, Dunlop tennis shoes and jeans, and keen to articulate his “group vision”.

But faced with personal questions, he becomes shy and defensive. For a young man whose fortune has been built on communication, ease of access and free exchange of information, Mr Zuckerberg appears coy and guarded about his personal details.

This week, however, marks a coming of age, courtesy of Bill Gates, the man who inspired Mr Zuckerberg to leave his books behind and build his business dream.

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