Five people are commonly credited with founding Facebook together at Harvard in 2004.
The group consisted of Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes. Zuckerberg created the original website, while the others contributed to business, programming, design, and early development.
The service launched as TheFacebook on February 4, 2004, initially for Harvard students. It expanded to other universities before eventually becoming available to a much wider public audience.
The number can be confusing because Sean Parker became an influential early president and Peter Thiel became an important early investor, but neither is counted among the five original Harvard co-founders. Divisions over ownership and contributions later led to major legal disputes.