(Book Review) The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook by Ben Mezrich

When I was at MPH Bookstores in Subang Parade, side-by-side with Richard Branson’s Losing My Virginity book was Ben Mezrich’s The Accidental Billionaires. I stared closely and it was like red vs blue. Eventually, I chose the blue. It was tightly wrapped-up with plastic. Without knowing the content, I just bought The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook because it’s cheap and only few copies left. That’s a sign this is a popular and bestseller.

Back home, upon tearing the plastic wrap and observing the cover of The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook I knew I made no mistake and it’s a wise decision because of its inspiring story. The cover gives a preview into the world of Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin, the people behind the early days of Facebook.

The author, Ben Mezrich, tells the genuine story with the help of Eduardo Saverin on how Facebook was started and how it has become a dorm-room experiment worth over $15 billion company. Ben Mezrich never met Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook. All Zuckerberg’s character being written based on interview with various people, including Saverin, and he spin-it-off and spice-it-up in his own imaginative ways. Exaggerative I must say. He’s a drama king.

The chronological book started with Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin met at a fraternity function while freshmen at Harvard University. It’s an eye-opener for me. I have never been to United States, let alone Harvard University. Being a Malaysian, I never knew an existence of high-profile club in the American university, such as Phoenix, which Saverin was trying to become a member. Remember college-related blockbuster movie in Hollywood? Similar to that, it tells an in-depth story about freshmen dorms, Quad and houses.

It revealed that Zuckerberg do not know how to approach girls. It was a shameful moment when one of the girl Saverin and Zuckerberg double-dated has no interest at all to Zuckerberg. Felt annoyed, a smart guy Zuckerberg promised to use his hacking and programming knowledge to lure all the girls in Harvard.

Like a James-Bond suspense movie, Ben Mezrich created a thrilling moment where he assumed Zuckerberg began by hacking into the university’s dormitory rosters and loading pictures of every person on campus into his laptop. In addition to make his job so cool, Zuckerberg blogged about it. What he has done and what to do next. He called it Facemash, a sort-of “Hot or Not” comparison site.

The site was largely successful as people emailed the site to everyone they know and there were thousands of visitors in only one day. Mark never imagined this site would blow up as it had and knew that he may be facing some legal issues. The site, which hosted on his laptop, went crash.

As a result of his hacking, Zuckerberg has been called-up to Harvard’s review board. He apologized and told the board that he never intended any harm. The website has been removed. All of a sudden, Zuckerberg became a talk-of-a-town. Everywhere he goes, people recognize him for the trouble he created.

He attracted two members of Harvard’s prestigious rowing team, Winklevoss twins. The Winklevoss twins wanted to see him for a discussion on a secret project, a social networking site where people on Harvard can communicate in a new and innovative ways. Zuckerberg seemed excited and happy to be part of the team. Zuckerberg continue the project even without any payment or reward. He noticed that the site being developed lack some key elements. He stopped the project and quit.

Zuckerberg started his own project that changed the world today. Zuckerberg came up with an idea similar to that of the Winklevoss twins called thefacebook. His creation would not only allow people to meet one another, but would allow them to create circles of friends, post pictures, talk about their interests. These are the key elements missing with Winklevoss secret project. Interestingly, Zuckerberg even created an interesting feature where people can leave messages on their friends’ “walls”. Similar to the Facemash, the new website was released and extremely popular. Zuckerberg’s website created a new buzz and had most of Harvard’s campus registered. Nearby colleges joined in too and millions of people had joined thefacebook within a year.

Winklevoss twins were not happy. Zuckerberg’s creation was very identical to their secrect project, Connect U. They threatened Zuckerberg with a legal lawsuit and ended-up getting $65 million compensation when Facebook became a world phenomenon.

Eduardo Saverin felt the same way. He was not happy. He helped Zuckerberg during the early days of thefacebook but been phased out when the company went public. Similar to the Winklevoss twins, Saverin went for a lawsuit and his name mysteriously reappeared as co-founder.

Zuckerberg met a new friend, Sean Parker, a Silicon Valley darling and creator of Napster. Parker knew he could make thefacebook to greater heights as how he changed the world of music with Napser. Record label nearly dies because of his file and music-sharing software.

Parker convinced Zuckerberg to follow his pathway. He knew a lot of billionaire and potential investor for thefacebook. They both cruised the company and change the name of thefacebook to Facebook. It went from nothing to enormous giant company. Parker didn’t stay long. He was kicked out of the company due to legal issues.

Zuckerberg is now worth over $15 billion dollars. He turned-off many offers, even from Microsoft and Google. He sold a very small percentage, 1.6 percent stake of Facebook to his idol, Bill Gates of Microsoft for $2 billion dollars.

This book is highly recommended to anyone, but a must-read to technopreneur.

Facebook Error: Profile Unavailable – Sorry, this profile is not available at the moment. Please try again shortly.

Is Facebook unable to cater the growth?

Profile Unavailable

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Facebook on Google Chrome – You are using an incompatible web browser

What’s wrong with that? All the while, I don’t encounter any problem using Google Chrome.
Others in Blogosphere reported the same thing when you’re using Google Chrome in Incognito mode.

Is this the so-called new Facebook? New rage war against Google?