If you had to guess what Meta Platforms Inc. (META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg considers his most important Harvard achievement, you'd probably say Facebook. You'd be wrong.

During his 2017 Harvard commencement address, Zuckerberg revealed that Facemash holds that distinction. Not because of anything technical or groundbreaking, but because it's how he met his wife, Priscilla Chan. "Without Facemash, I wouldn't have met Priscilla, and she's the most important person in my life," he told the graduating class.

For those who don't remember, Facemash was a spectacularly ill-advised website Zuckerberg created in 2003. The concept was simple and problematic: users could compare and rank Harvard students' attractiveness based on photos he'd pulled from the university's online directories without permission.

Harvard wasn't amused. The university shut down the site quickly, and Zuckerberg faced potential expulsion for security violations, copyright infringement, and privacy breaches. It was serious enough that his friends organized what they assumed would be a farewell party, convinced he was getting kicked out.

That party turned out to be life-changing, just not in the way anyone expected. That's where Zuckerberg met Chan, who would become his wife in 2012. Together, they later founded the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a philanthropic organization focused on using technology to address global challenges. They now have three children together.

The 2010 film "The Social Network" portrayed Facemash as an intellectual stepping stone to Facebook, but Zuckerberg has consistently downplayed any technical or conceptual connection between the two. What he does acknowledge is the chain of events the controversy set in motion, events that led him to the person who would become the mother of his children and his partner in both life and philanthropy.

It's a reminder that life rarely follows a straight line. Sometimes a mistake that nearly derails everything ends up being the most consequential decision you make, just not for the reasons you'd expect. Behind one of the world's most powerful tech companies is a personal story that started with a college prank gone wrong and a party that almost didn't matter.