Meta

69 major milestones

American multinational technology company (formerly Facebook, Inc.) operating Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Messenger, WhatsApp and Reality Labs, focused on social networking, advertising and the metaverse.

Latest Valuation

$980,000,000,000

4 Funding Rounds

Company Timeline

Years 0-4

Company founded (incorporation date shown in corporate filings)

Meta (originally Facebook/TheFacebook) traces corporate founding to early 2004; Mark Zuckerberg and co-founders organized the company structure in Cambridge, MA.

Year 0 • 2004

Founders' initial cash investment

Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin agreed to invest $1,000 each to pay initial operating costs and hosting.

Year 0 • 2004

TheFacebook launched from Harvard dorm

Mark Zuckerberg launched 'TheFacebook' at Harvard University with co-founders Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, Andrew McCollum and Chris Hughes; initial growth to ~1,200–1,500 registrations in 24 hours.

Year 0 • 2004

TheFacebook formally organised as LLC / early incorporation

The site was formally given a legal corporate structure (LLC) in early 2004 as it prepared to scale and accept outside investment.

Year 0 • 2004

Peter Thiel angel investment

Peter Thiel invested $500,001 for a reported ~10.2% stake (first outside funding) and joined the board; convertible note converted to equity despite missed metric.

Year 0 • 2004Valuation: $4,900,000

Sean Parker becomes company president (advisor role formalized)

Entrepreneur Sean Parker, who had been advising Zuckerberg, assumed the title of president and helped attract investors.

Year 0 • 2004

Operations moved to Palo Alto

Facebook (TheFacebook) moved base of operations from Cambridge/Harvard area to Palo Alto, California, to access Silicon Valley talent and investors.

Year 0 • 2004

ConnectU lawsuit filed

Three Harvard seniors (Winklevoss twins and Divya Narendra) accused Zuckerberg of using their idea; litigation began and later settled.

Year 0 • 2004

Accel Partners Series A investment

Accel (Jim Breyer) invested $12.7 million in April 2005 in a Series A that valued Facebook at about $98 million post-money.

Year 1 • 2005Valuation: $98,000,000

facebook.com domain acquired; 'The' dropped from name

Company purchased facebook.com (reported ~$200,000) and rebranded from TheFacebook to Facebook, simplifying name for global expansion.

Year 1 • 2005

High-school expansion and corporate employee eligibility

Facebook expanded eligibility beyond colleges to high schools and selected company employees (e.g., Apple, Microsoft), broadening user base.

Year 1 • 2005

News Feed launched

Facebook introduced News Feed, a personalized stream of friends' activities, which became central to user engagement.

Year 2 • 2006

Opened to general public (13+ with email)

Facebook removed university restrictions and opened registrations to anyone 13 and older with a valid email address, enabling rapid scale.

Year 2 • 2006

Facebook Platform launched (f8) for developers

At the first f8 conference Facebook launched a developer platform enabling third-party apps and games to plug into Facebook data and UX.

Year 3 • 2007

Microsoft strategic investment

Microsoft purchased a reported 1.6% of Facebook for $240 million, implying roughly a $15 billion valuation and rights for international ads.

Year 3 • 2007Valuation: $15,000,000,000

Facebook Beta (major UI redesign) introduced

Facebook introduced a significant redesign (consolidating Mini-Feed/Wall, tabbed profiles) as 'Facebook Beta' and began migrating users.

Year 4 • 2008

100 million total users milestone

Facebook passed ~100 million total users (reported in 2008), a major scale milestone.

Year 4 • 2008

International headquarters established in Dublin

Facebook announced its international HQ location in Dublin, Ireland to support global growth.

Year 4 • 2008

Years 5-9

DST/Usmanov Russian investment (~$200M)

Yuri Milner's DST and Alisher Usmanov invested ~$200 million in 2009 for a stake; the round implied a roughly $10 billion valuation.

Year 5 • 2009Valuation: $10,000,000,000

Introduced Like button

The Like button was introduced to allow users to quickly express approval/engagement; it became a signature interaction.

Year 5 • 2009

Became cash flow positive

Facebook reported becoming cash-flow positive in 2009 ahead of schedule after closing operating profitability gaps.

Year 5 • 2009

500 million users milestone

Facebook announced 500 million users; ~150 million accessed from mobile and average daily use high.

Year 6 • 2010

fb.com domain acquired

Facebook announced acquisition of the domain fb.com from the American Farm Bureau Federation for an undisclosed amount (later reported Farm Bureau income $8.5M).

Year 6 • 2010

Facebook partners with Skype for video chat

Facebook added native video chat functionality through a partnership with Skype, enabling real-time video calls on the platform.

Year 7 • 2011

App Center announced (app store for Facebook apps)

Facebook launched App Center to curate and distribute apps across web and mobile for Facebook users.

Year 8 • 2012

Acquired Instagram

Facebook acquired Instagram for approximately $1 billion in cash and stock, expanding into mobile photo-sharing and social media.

Year 8 • 2012

Initial public offering (IPO)

Facebook IPO priced at $38 per share, raised ~$16 billion and implied an initial market valuation of ~$104 billion; one of largest tech IPOs.

Year 8 • 2012Valuation: $104,000,000,000

Reached 1 billion monthly active users

Facebook announced one billion monthly active users, marking global scale and dominance.

Year 8 • 2012

Graph Search announced

Facebook unveiled Graph Search to allow semantic searching of content shared on the platform, privacy-aware by design.

Year 9 • 2013

Facebook Home (Android UI layer) launched

Facebook announced Facebook Home, a home-screen UI layer for Android devices to increase integration with the Facebook experience.

Year 9 • 2013

Years 10-14

Surpassed $200B market cap (2014–2015 timeframe)

Facebook's market capitalization crossed $200 billion later in 2014, reflecting investor optimism about mobile ad monetization.

Year 10 • 2014Valuation: $200,000,000,000

Acquired WhatsApp

Facebook agreed to buy WhatsApp for about $19 billion in cash and stock, dramatically expanding messaging footprint.

Year 10 • 2014

Acquired Oculus VR

Facebook acquired Oculus VR for approximately $2.3 billion in cash and stock, signaling investment in virtual reality and the metaverse.

Year 10 • 2014

Peer-to-peer payments launched in Messenger

Facebook added P2P payments within Messenger to allow users to send money peer-to-peer.

Year 11 • 2015

Reactions added (beyond Like)

Facebook introduced Reactions (Love, Haha, Wow, Sad, Angry) to give more nuanced post responses.

Year 12 • 2016

Facebook Spaces (VR social product) announced

Facebook announced Facebook Spaces for Oculus to enable social VR experiences and content sharing in virtual environments.

Year 13 • 2017

Acquired anonymous compliment app tbh

Facebook acquired youth-focused anonymous app tbh and left it independent as part of product/engagement experiments.

Year 13 • 2017

Cambridge Analytica data scandal breaks

Reporting revealed that Cambridge Analytica improperly harvested data of tens of millions of Facebook users, triggering global scrutiny, regulatory probes and brand damage.

Year 14 • 2018

Portal smart displays launched

Facebook launched Portal and Portal+ video-first smart display devices (with Amazon Alexa support) for home video calling experiences.

Year 14 • 2018

Years 15-19

Acquired Giphy

Facebook acquired GIF platform Giphy for a reported cash price of ~$400 million to integrate with Instagram and other properties.

Year 16 • 2020

Dark mode launched for mobile apps

Facebook rolled out a Dark Mode option for its mobile app to improve user experience and accessibility.

Year 16 • 2020

Announced acquisition of Kustomer (CRM)

Facebook announced plans to acquire customer-service platform Kustomer (reported valuation ~just over $1B) to expand business messaging/commerce capabilities.

Year 16 • 2020

FTC antitrust lawsuit filed (seeking divestiture of Instagram, WhatsApp)

FTC and coalition of states filed antitrust suits alleging illegal monopolization and seeking remedy including divestiture of Instagram and WhatsApp.

Year 17 • 2021

Massive data leak reported (~530M users)

A dataset reportedly exposing data for roughly 530 million users was publicized, raising security and privacy concerns.

Year 17 • 2021

Global outage affecting Facebook properties

A global outage on Oct 4, 2021 impacted Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp for about six+ hours, affecting roughly three billion users and internal systems.

Year 17 • 2021

Company rebrands to Meta Platforms, Inc.

Facebook, Inc. changed corporate name to Meta to reflect strategic focus on the metaverse and AR/VR investments (Reality Labs).

Year 17 • 2021

Shut down facial recognition system and delete faceprint database

Facebook announced it would shut down its facial recognition system and delete faceprint templates for more than a billion users, citing privacy concerns.

Year 17 • 2021

Daily active users decline reported (first time)

Meta reported a quarterly decline in daily active users (DAUs), the company's first recorded drop in its history, citing competition and ad-market headwinds.

Year 18 • 2022

Russia bans Meta services

Following policy changes related to content about the Russia-Ukraine war, Russia banned Meta's services (including Instagram) in-country.

Year 18 • 2022

First year-on-year revenue decline

Meta reported its first annual revenue decline (year-on-year) as ad business weakened; total revenue slipped about 1% to $28.8B in a quarter referenced by reports.

Year 18 • 2022

Largest workforce reduction: 11,000 employees laid off

Meta announced major layoffs cutting roughly 11,000 employees (~13% of workforce) as part of cost-cutting and strategic refocus.

Year 18 • 2022

LLaMA (foundational language model) released

Meta released LLaMA (Large Language Model) family for research, marking a major strategic emphasis on open/accessible AI capabilities.

Year 19 • 2023

Major layoffs and repositioning (10,000 jobs cut announced in March)

Meta announced an additional round of job reductions (about 10,000 roles) and hiring freezes to reduce costs and refocus on AI.

Year 19 • 2023

Meta Verified subscription introduced (creator verification paid product)

Meta launched Meta Verified subscription offering verified badge, account protection and support to creators and users for a fee.

Year 19 • 2023

EU / EDPB fines for data-transfer violations (€1.2B)

Irish and EU regulators fined Meta a record ~€1.2 billion for unlawful transfers of EU user data to the United States.

Year 19 • 2023

Quest 3 VR headset launched

Meta released Quest 3 with improved performance and mixed-reality features to drive adoption of its VR ecosystem.

Year 19 • 2023

Llama 2 released for commercial use; partnerships for cloud distribution

Meta announced Llama 2, an open-source-capable model available for commercial use with cloud partners (e.g., Microsoft), advancing generative AI strategy.

Year 19 • 2023

Launched Threads (text-based app) — Twitter competitor

Meta launched Threads, a text-centric social app integrated with Instagram; reported tens of millions of sign-ups soon after launch (approx. 30M initial signups reported).

Year 19 • 2023

Giphy divestiture ordered and sale

After CMA objections to the 2020 Giphy acquisition, Meta agreed to divest Giphy and sold it to Shutterstock in May 2023 for ~$53M (deal reported).

Year 19 • 2023

Years 20-24

Stock approaches all-time high and near $1T market cap

Meta's share price rose strongly and reached an all-time high in Jan 2024, bringing the company within ~2% of a $1 trillion market capitalization.

Year 20 • 2024Valuation: $980,000,000,000

Launched paid ad-free subscription in Europe

Meta introduced an ad-free subscription product in Europe allowing subscribers to opt out of targeted advertising for a fee.

Year 20 • 2024

European Commission opens child-safety investigation

European Commission announced an investigation into Meta over child-safety concerns on its platforms.

Year 20 • 2024

Announced Movie Gen AI (video generation) model

Meta unveiled Movie Gen, an advanced model capable of generating realistic video and audio from user prompts; company restricted open release to partner integrations.

Year 20 • 2024

Announced $10B AI data center investment in northeast Louisiana

Meta pledged ~$10 billion for a major AI data center project in northeast Louisiana to support compute needs for AI development.

Year 20 • 2024

Global outage (Dec 11) affected Facebook and Instagram

A global outage on Dec 11, 2024 impacted accounts across Facebook and Instagram; outage reports spiked tens of thousands on DownDetector.

Year 20 • 2024

Policy and DEI changes; rollback of DEI initiatives

Meta announced rollbacks to its diversity, equity and inclusion programs, citing legal and policy landscape changes in the U.S., and made controversial moderation policy changes.

Year 21 • 2025

Settled 2021 Trump account-suspension lawsuit for $25M

Meta agreed to pay $25 million to settle a lawsuit filed by Donald Trump regarding suspension of his accounts after January 6, 2021.

Year 21 • 2025

Employees headcount (June 2025)

Reported employee count reached about 75,945 (June 2025), reflecting hiring and later reductions tied to strategic shifts.

Year 21 • 2025

Announced potential multibillion investment in Scale AI (rumored >$10B)

Reports indicated Meta planned a strategic investment into Scale AI that could exceed $10 billion — potentially one of the largest private funding rounds.

Year 21 • 2025