The founder and CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, has revealed that the difficulties he’s faced in recent times have caused him to think more about the meaning of life.
It hasn’t been an easy ride for the billionaire tech whiz over the past couple of years. Much to his dismay, Zuckerberg has been spending less time delivering slick presentations to web developers and more time before Congress to face questions over the manipulation of his social media platform’s data procurement and advertising practices.
The whole ordeal has forced him to think more profoundly about the meaning of life.
“The last few years have been really humbling for me. I’ve become more religious,” the entrepreneur told Silicon Slopes Tech Summit last week, according to Deseret News.
Zuckerberg went on to note that when life gets tough, it makes you wonder whether there is something “bigger than ourselves.”
“We all need to feel like we’re parts of things that are bigger than ourselves,” he added. “Work is important… but at the end of the day we’re all people, and you need your family and friends and communities around you.”
“You have to believe in things that are bigger than yourself.”
While historically he has defined himself as an atheist, in recent years Zuckerberg has appeared increasingly sympathetic to religion.
In 2017, he spent months traveling around the U.S. to meet with various religious leaders in order to greater understand the nature of relationships as developed within a community of faith.
“I’m looking at more of the world through the lens of building community these days,” he said at the time, before recalling his meeting with church leaders in Alabama. “In Mobile, we joined a baptist church for services this morning and saw how the church provides an important social structure for the community,” he explained.
The social media mogul — who is worth an estimated $74 billion — said he sought to meet ministers “who are helping their congregations find deeper meaning in a changing world.”
Though he is open to many religions, his past experience is rooted in the Jewish faith.
“I was raised Jewish and then I went through a period where I questioned things,” the businessman explained in 2016, responding to a direct question about whether he was an atheist. “But now I believe religion is very important.”