The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook

The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook - A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal, by Ben Mezrich

Sitting on the plane, waiting for the engines to come on, Eduardo still couldn't believe it all. He'd eaten koala on a yacht. He'd gotten drunk in some of the poshest places in Northern California. And he'd been whispered numbers that would make him and Mark rich, really rich.

Whatever the numbers were, though, Eduardo knew that they weren't going to sell thefacebook. In his mind, it was way too early for that.

I wanted to read this novel because I had seen the movie "The Social Network" recently (click here for my review of it) and the movie was based on this book, which in turn was based on the real events that had led to the founding of Facebook. I had no idea so much controversy had surrounded its beginnings before I saw the movie, or that Mark Zuckerberg had essentially screwed over some of his friends, and as an avid Facebook user, I was intrigued by all of it. The novel ended up being mostly the same as the movie, with the exception of a few scenes here and there, and I liked it a lot because it was written in narrative format, rather than a dry biography-type form. The author, Ben Mezrich, went to Harvard as well, which was interesting (Zuckerberg and the former CEO of Facebook, Edwardo Saverin, had been Harvard students before starting Facebook - Saverin and not Zuckerberg went on to get his degree there). The book covers all the major events leading up to the creation of Facebook, and the events that happened after, which led to two major lawsuits being leveled against Mark Zuckerberg, both of which he lost.

4 stars out of 5.