Written By: Ben Mezrich
Read by: Mike Chamberlain
Background: The Accidental Billionaires is the book the now hit movie "The Social Network" is based on. Ben Mezrich, based this book on a series of interviews with former Facebook founder Eduardo Saverin, Mark Zuckerberg declined to be interviewed for the book. This produces a very one sided story that many people that were actually there when this all happened say is highly fictionalized.
I haven't seen the movie yet, and after reading the book, I'm not really sure how they transitioned this to the screen? It just doesn't seem like the type of material that transitions to the screen very well. However the story that is told is interesting, and if Saverin is to be believed it certainly makes me think that anyone that works for Facebook should never cross paths with Zuckerberg. He really goes out of his way to make Mark look like an ego-centric jerk. But a withdrawn and un-selfassured/socially awkward ego-centric jerk. Which is an interesting combination.
Mark Zuckerberg came up with the idea for an online website "Facebook" that originally was just for Harvard students since he was in his second year at Harvard. The term "Facebook" was taken from Harvard's own student information Database. Within Facebook's first year though it had expanded to Colleges all over the country.
Probably the most interesting thing in the book is that Zuckerberg started "The Facebook" really without the intention of starting a business or making money. He really just wanted to make something that was really cool. The idea that it could make a lot of money came from Sean Parker, one of the former founders of Napster. Parker is the reason Facebook is just called Facebook. Mark had always called it, "The Facebook". I think this was Parker's biggest contribution to Facebook, at least according to Saverin, who seemingly was Parker's nemesis. Like many others, once Parker had used up his usefulness he was let go as well.
The Review: In general this was an ok book. The reading by Mike Chamberlain was well executed. It did seem very choppy though. You could tell Mezrich was short on sources because he really had to stretch to come up with a story. It would be very interesting indeed to hear Mark's side of the story. Though since he is such a seemingly guarded person, I doubt that a biography about him will be forth coming. Not for a long while at least.
Rating: I give this a 3 out of 5
-B
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