Accidental Billionaires

I’m back one last time, blogging for my MPA 605 class.  Today, I will be reviewing a book of my choice.  The requirement for the class is that the book can be fiction or novel, non-fiction or academic but related to information technology.  The book I chose is The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal.  The book is by Ben Mezrich.  The publisher is DoubleDay and the ISBN is 978-0-385-52937-2.  For those of you who don’t know, this is the book that inspired the movie “The Social Network”, which was a movie about the creator and creation of Facebook.

The reason why Ben Mezrich wrote this book is unclear.  I researched the book and the author on the Internet, but could not find much information about this.  However, if I had to guess, I would say the reason is because the story about the founders of Facebook is really very interesting.  It’s filled with friendship, lawsuits and betrayal.  Seems like a best seller to me.  The bottom line is Facebook has taken over the world, in a matter of years.  I am not sure about everyone else, but I know one of the first things I do in the morning (and all day long actually) is check my Facebook account.  It happens all day, every day.  And I am sure that I am not the only one.  With the invention of smart phones, we all have access to Facebook without having to turn on our computers.  It is a fascinating obsession that we all have.  So I’m sure this is why Ben Mezrich decided to write a book about it. 

As I’ve explained earlier, this book is about the founding (and founders) of Facebook.  So there’s not a thesis per say, throughout the book.  The book tells a story, a narrative one at that, about the founding of Facebook.  The main source that Ben Mezrich spoke to was the co-founder of Facebook, Edwardo Saverin.  The CEO and founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg refused to speak with the author when he was investigating the story of the founding of Facebook.  The main source for the book was Edwardo, who in the end was betrayed by his friend, the founder of Facebook.  I am not sure if Edwardo was trying to get back at Mark Zuckerberg for the betrayal he endured.  But he was there during most of the conversations surrounding the founding of Facebook, so he has an accurate account of what happened. 

The story mainly involves 2 men, Mark Zuckerberg and Edwardo Saverin.  These two men are known as the founders of Facebook.  They met in college (Harvard), when they were both in an underground Jewish Fraternity.  They were both aware that their social status was not the best.  Neither of them were Harvard legacies or athletes.  So they both sought out to try and get social acceptance.  Edwardo tried to change his social status by joining a Final Club at Harvard.  This was a lot like a fraternity.  However, Mark had different interests than Edwardo.  I do not think that Mark had any desire in being friends with his fellow Harvard elite.  I believe Mark wanted more than that.  I believe he wanted recognition, from everyone.  Mark was great with computers and code.  While he was in high school, he created a program that learned the user’s listening habits.  Supposedly Microsoft offered him 1 million dollars for the rights to this program, but he turned them down.  One night in his dorm room in late 2003, Mark created a website that took the pictures of all the Harvard female students and compared them to each other.  He got the pictures of the female students by hacking into the Harvard servers and computers and downloading them all.  The object of the website it to have users vote on which girl they thought was more attractive.  From this idea, Facebook was born.  At the time, there were not a lot of social networks on the Internet.  Mark created The Facebook, a social network that had everything that the other websites were missing.  Mark and Edwardo decided on the business agreement for The Facebook.  Edwardo invested his own money into the company, to fund servers and equipment.  Because of this, Edwardo would become the CFO and was in charge of the business side of the company.  Mark became the CEO and was in charge of the programming side of the company.  They also had help from 3 other Harvard students to help with programming and graphics.  The Facebook started off being available to only Harvard students.  However, once it took over the Harvard campus, the company decided to offer The Facebook up to other Ivy League schools.  By 2004, The Facebook was available to anyone who had a valid college email address.  In mid 2004, Sean Parker, the creator of Napster,  became an unofficial advisor to Mark.  However, with his involvement, came a lot of trouble, mainly for Edwardo.  During their summer break, he moved to New York city for an internship and to try and obtain companies that would advertise on Facebook  This way Facebook could start making money.  However, Mark moved to Silicon Valley California, with Facebook interns to write code and try to expand the business.  This is where Mark ran into Sean.  Sean wanted to be involved in all aspects of Facebook, because he knew it was it going to be a big thing.  With Sean’s help, Mark restructured the company and forced Edwardo to sign away the rights he had to the company.  In the end, I believe it was Mark’s business card that explained his point of view and reasons for doing everything he did and does for the company.  His business card read “I’m CEO-Bitch.”  In other words, he was the boss.  And his main focus has been and will always be Facebook. If anyone threatens to ruin that focus, he will get rid of them.

While this book did talk about creating computer programs and websites like Facebook, it did not go into too much information technology language.  It spoke more about the business side of The Facebook during it’s start up phase.  It did talk about how simple it is to start a website if you have the right tools and knowledge.  I found it very interesting how something that has become such a huge part of everyone’s daily routine, was created in a college dorm room by one person using a computer and his knowledge of computer and website code.   The story itself I thought was very interesting.  It left me wanting to know more about not just the characters in the true story, but also about how Facebook has changed since it became live in 2003.  I thought this book was an easy read and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I recommend it to anyone who is as obsessed about pop culture as I am.  Since reading the book, I have caught myself thinking about Mark Zuckerberg and Edward Saverin, about their idea and vision for Facebook.  I wonder if they ever thought it would get this big.  This all started with them wanting to change their social status on campus.  It’s amazing how much you can get accomplished when you have a vision for something, even if that vision is to meet girls.