Mark Zuckerberg may now be bruising himself in MMA gyms and winning jiu-jitsu medals, but his attraction to combat sports began much earlier. At Phillips Exeter Academy, the future Meta boss was captain of the fencing team, sharpening the same focus, timing and tactical instinct that now define his fitness obsession. Today, Zuckerberg is a billionaire, one of the world’s richest men, and someone sitting on a fortune of around $213 billion.
His life trajectory has been visible to the world ever since Facebook made it big. For the last two decades, people have watched him evolve from the Harvard student who launched TheFacebook.com from his dorm room in 2004 to one of the most powerful tech figures on the planet. Facebook officially opened its doors to the public in 2006, and since then, we have seen the 41-year-old transform from boy to man, millionaire to billionaire, and now a ripped tech tycoon. The wardrobe changed too, with the Meta boss finally coming into his own.
But on closer look, one thing has not changed, his fascination with highly strategic, high-stakes physical sports where a split second of lost concentration can mean instant defeat. This habit is not new. In fact, it may be one of the few threads that has stayed with the boy who attended Harvard and went on to change the internet. As a senior at Phillips Exeter Academy, one of America’s most storied prep-school pressure cookers, Zuckerberg listed the predictable tech support and computer programming on his 2001 application to Harvard. But the biggest component in Zuckerberg’s application was not coding. It was fencing.
Exeter was not the kind of school where a gifted teenager could simply disappear behind a computer screen. It was a 700-acre New England pressure chamber built around debate, discipline, leadership and sport. Students participate in more than 200 organizations, while nearly 70 percent of Exonians join one or more of the school’s 60 athletic teams across 23 sports. That helps explain why Zuckerberg was not simply picking up fencing as a hobby.
He was part of a broader Exeter culture where academics, leadership and sport overlapped. According to The Crimson, Zuckerberg’s handwritten application uncovered his passion for fencing. “Amidst a hectic week of work, fencing has always proven to be the perfect medium; for it is both social and sport, mental and athletic, and controlled yet sometimes undisciplined,” he wrote in response to the prompt asking about his most meaningful activity.
It sounds strikingly similar to something he told Joe Rogan in 2022, when he said running gave him too much room to think, while MMA forced complete focus. Business Insider quoted him saying MMA was physically and intellectually engaging because if you lose focus for a second, you end up “on the bottom.” That is where the fencing connection becomes fascinating. Both sports punish distraction instantly. In fencing, one mistimed step can cost you a point. In MMA, one lost second can put you flat on your back.
By May 2023, the billionaire had already made a mark for himself by competing in BJJ Tour Silicon Valley in Woodside, California, where he won gold in the Nogi Master 1 White Belt Feather Weight division and silver in the Gi Master 2 White Belt Feather Weight division. He later trained three to four times a week in jiu-jitsu and MMA, while also working on strength, conditioning and mobility.
Fencing may perhaps no longer be part of Zuckerberg’s routine, but it may have taught him the language of combat long before MMA did. The strip came before the cage, the foil before the gloves, and the teenage fencer at Exeter may explain the billionaire fighter we see today.
