A couple months ago the New York Times ran an exposé on the havoc Mark Zuckerberg is wreaking on a neighborhood of Palo Alto. He started by buying the oldest home in the city, located in the tony Crescent Park area, and then proceeded to buy 10 more properties that he’s been turning into a mega compound. The article was gloriously dishy, full of fed up neighbors who want an end to the noise pollution of construction, among other things. One detail tucked into the NY Times’ reporting was mention of a private school being run on the compound, which was a violation of residential zoning law in Palo Alto. Well, Wired has picked up that thread to deliver their own exposé that zeroes in on the illegal school issue. After filing a public record request, Wired pored over 311 records, legal filings, construction plans, and emails — 1,665 pages of documents in total — to give us the full picture. Starting with the fact that the school is named after a chicken, as all schools should be.
According to The New York Times, which first reported on the school’s existence, it was called “Bicken Ben School” and shared a name with one of the Zuckerbergs’ chickens. The listing for Bicken Ben School, or BBS for short, in a California Department of Education directory claims the school opened on October 5, 2022. This, however, is the year after neighbors claim to have first seen it operating. It’s also two and a half years after Sara Berge–the school’s point of contact, per documents WIRED obtained from the state via public record reques—claims to have started her role as “head of school” for a “Montessori pod” at a “private family office” according to her LinkedIn profile, which WIRED viewed in September and October. Berge did not respond to a request to comment.
Between 2022 and 2025, according to the documents Bicken Ben filed to the state, the school grew from nine to 14 students ranging from 5 to 10 years old. Neighbors, however, estimated that they observed 15 to 30 students. Berge similarly claimed on her LinkedIn profile to have overseen “25 children” in her job. In a June 2025 job listing for “BBS,” the school had a “current enrollment of 35-40 students and plans for continued growth,” which the listing says includes a middle school.
In order for the Zuckerbergs to run a private school on their land, which is in a residential zone, they need a “conditional use” permit from the city. However, based on the documents WIRED obtained, and Palo Alto’s public database of planning applications, the Zuckerbergs do not appear to have ever applied for or received this permit.
Per emails obtained by WIRED, Palo Alto authorities told a lawyer working with the Zuckerbergs in March 2025 that the family had to shut down the school on its compound by June 30. A state directory lists BBS, the abbreviation for Bicken Ben School, as having operated until August 18, and three of Zuckerberg’s neighbors—who all requested anonymity due to the high-profile nature of the family—confirmed to WIRED in late September that they had not seen or heard students being dropped off and picked up on weekdays in recent weeks.
However, Zuckerberg family spokesperson Brian Baker tells WIRED that the school didn’t close, per se. It simply moved. It’s not clear where it is now located, or whether the school is operating under a different name.
There’s even more in the full Wired article, if you can believe it, including a tidbit about how the Zuckerbergs are currently trying to get the school redesignated as a daycare, which would make it subject to state law (as opposed to Palo Alto). Those sneaky f–ks. They have the world, and it’s not enough. It also illustrates a point made by their neighbors in the NY Times piece: why didn’t they just buy land in an undeveloped area and build the compound to their liking from scratch? Instead of plunking themselves down in an established, historic neighborhood? Also, that comment from the spokesperson that the school “didn’t close, per se,” was super fishy. As for the school’s staff, I hope they’ve learned the lesson that public records are, well, PUBLIC, and can be checked against each other.
I’m glad the NY Times and Wired are exposing Zuck’s shenanigans with the Bicken Ben School, and his Palo Alto compound writ large. If I may, though, there is one area where I’d like to see further reporting: can we please have more biographical details on Bicken Ben the namesake chicken? Omitting that just seems fowl. (Yes, I went there. No, not sorry.)
Photos via Instagram and credit Will Oliver/POOL via CNP/INSTARimages.com
Eat the rich.
A bunch of entitled creeps 😕
Tax these weird f#cks out of existence.
You’re exactly right. They have the world and it’s not enough. They want it all. God forbid, Joe Public tried pulling this crap while living next door though. I loathe this guy from pictures alone. He looks like everything said about him.
Interesting…I wonder if closing the low income school at the end of the current school year, that their foundation has funded in East Palo Alto for a decade, is Zuck’s Trumpian way of stomping his feet like a toddler for the city telling him NO.
Zuckerberg has shown his colors time after time…he’s doing the same thing in HI…
Just another example of people with too much money who feel they can do whatever you want. They cannot comprehend that there are laws and that what they do may affect others. I feel for their neighbors. If there’s construction noise, a school, and all the extra traffic that goes with those, I imagine they have to witness grotesque events, obnoxious landscaping, and participate in crazy privacy demands for this guy.
There shouldn’t be billionaires.
Can we stop letting Priscilla Chan off the hook? She is as much an entitled f**k as he is but his name is the one splashed over all the stories.
Because she’s an MD she seems to get a pass all the time but I think they are a match made in hell
It’s going to look quite odd if this “day care” has kids ages 5-10 there during school hours. These obscenely rich people appear not to be capable of looking beyond the end of their nose. If they were, they would think of things like that.
They didn’t create a compound from scratch cause taking your kids to school is for the Poors. School comes to HIS children, they don’t go to it.
They just figured their fame, power, and money would keep their neighbors quiet. But nouveau riche always forget that those generational rich areas are nothing but gossip hives
Generationally wealth does not make a person better. All this new money vs old money is silly.
I grew up in Palo Alto before Silicon Valley. It’s so weird to me to hear Crescent Park described as “tony”. It definitely was very middle class back in the day. Nothing is middle class there anymore, I realize. Palo Alto used to be a good place.
Shortie looks like a Thump….
Meta needs to loose like Tesla and Plantir….
I think we can do it……
🙂
Y’all know, the Poverty comes from their Greed…
Nobody should be a Billionaire, No exeption….
All The Money they made through Pandemic, is the exact amount others lost, sometimes they lost everything…
….Thumb…..