On Thursday, he returned to the campus where he launched what had become the largest social network in the world to obtain an honorary doctor of laws degree and deliver the commencement speech.
The 33-year-old billionaire did a Facebook Live broadcast from his old dorm room the day before the graduation ceremony.
"This is literally where I sat," he said while pointing to a small wooden desk and chair in Kirkland House.
"I had my little laptop here. And this is where I programmed Facebook.”
Facebook is now one of the biggest tech firms with nearly two billion members worldwide, that’s almost one-third of the entire world population!
In his commencement address, Zuckerberg highlighted that opportunities are hindered by certain level of wealth inequality that jeopardises everyone.
"There is something wrong with our system when I can leave here and make billions of dollars in ten years when millions of students can't afford to pay off their loans, let alone start a business,” he said.
"When you don't have the freedom to take your idea and turn it into a historic enterprise we all lose.”
He also urged the Harvard graduates to contemplate taking creative risks in solving social problems.
“We should explore ideas like universal basic income to make sure everyone has a cushion to try new ideas,” he said.
“Now it’s time for our generation to define a new social contract. We should have a society that measures progress not just by economic metrics like GDP but by how many of us have a role we find meaningful.”
Getting a little emotional, he told the crowd that “finding your purpose isn’t enough” and that we should “create a world where everyone has a sense of purpose”.
Coming from the same millennial generation as the new Harvard grads, the fifth-richest person in the world also encouraged them that it is “our generation’s turn to build great things”.
Although Zuckerberg’s honorary degree came a little late, it was still sooner than Bill Gates, another famous Harvard dropout.
Gates left the Ivy League to start Microsoft in 1975 and only received his honorary degree in 2007. That’s quite a long wait!
On that note, here’s a list of more college dropouts who turned out alright in the tech universe:
Michael Dell, Founder of Dell
Steve Jobs, Founder of Apple
Julian Assange, Founder of Wikileaks
Evan Williams, Co-founder of Twitter
Larry Ellison, Founder of Oracle
Jan Koum, Co-founder of WhatsApp
Travis Kalanick, Founder of Uber
But hey, this doesn’t mean that we’re encouraging students to stop going to school!
Never stop learning because as the famous saying by Mark Twain goes, never let school interfere with your education.