Many billionaire entrepreneurs will tell the story of their company’s origins and how it started in a past or a basement or something like that.
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There are Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs who started Amazon and Apple from their respective garages, David Karp who invented Tumblr in his childhood room and Michael Dell who started his eponymous computer company from his college dorm room.
Meta (which was Facebook at the time) was no different, with its three founders Sean Parker, Dustin Moskovitz and, of course, Mark Zuckerberg renting a Silicon Valley home that became the birthplace of what is now one of the largest (if not the largest) social media platforms in the world.
And now that piece of Meta’s history is up for sale as the Los Altos, California home was just on the list for a solid $5.3 million.
Related: Zuckerberg Sweeps Up $17 Million Former Plantation In Hawaii
The house (which Zuckerberg referred “Casa de Facebook”) was up for rent in the summer of 2004 when the three then 19 and 24 year olds stopped by to inquire with the property’s owner, Judy Fusco, about renting it.
“Marking [Zuckerberg] stood outside and never went into the house while Sean [Parker] and Dustin [Moskovitz] ran up the stairs to see the house,” Fusco told The New York Post in an interview. “Mark stood there and asked if they could rent it without even looking inside.”
The three men reportedly paid a total of $5,500 a month while living in rent after a $10,000 down payment was issued, though more than 10 other Facebook employees are said to have lived there at one time, according to Fusco.
“I read the check and asked him what he was doing, and he told me about a company called Facebook, and how he planned to connect the world,” Fusco said. The mail from Zuckerberg who asked her to rent the house. “I said, ‘I don’t care if you’re going to connect the world, if this check doesn’t pass, you won’t get in.’ †
The home shows off six bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms, a gazebo, living room with bay window and a balcony overlooking a nearby creek.
Related: Lessons on Building a Team from Zuckerberg and Facebook
At just 3,000 square feet, 1743 Westbrook Ave has bedrooms and bathrooms on each floor, allowing for a unique layout that is both spacious and full of natural light.
“This piece of Silicon Valley history sits at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac with a personalized sound wall in the expansive backyard and gazebo, perfect for BBQs and gatherings,” the listing reads. states†
Zuckerberg and his team stayed at home until 2005 when Facebook started to grow.
“Sean [Parker] would repeatedly ask me to invest, telling me I would be a billionaire one day if I did,” Fusco said as the company began to expand after the trio left their home. “They offered to give me the stock instead of the rent – a dollar a share. I said no.”
Today is Facebook estimated worth over $500 billion.
Zuckerberg currently has his own crowd portfolio of propertiesincluding his most recent purchase of a former plantation in Hawaii for a reported $17 million last December.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Zuckerberg’s ability was an estimate $68.2 billion.
