- Hardcover: 260 pages
- Publisher: Doubleday Books (14 July 2009)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0385529376
- ISBN-13: 978-0385529372
- Product Dimensions: 16.2 x 2.5 x 24.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
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- #96 in Books > Biography > Science, Mathematics & Technology > Computers
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
`Ben has a gift for finding high-energy, strange-but-true tales and THE ACCIDENTAL BILLIONAIRES is no exception ... You may think you know the story of the Facebook phenomenon, but you haven't heard the whole story and never like this ... Captivating ... THE ACCIDENTAL BILLIONAIRES is the perfect pairing of author and subject. It's pure summer fun--a juicy, fast-paced, unputdownable Mezrich tale.' --Kevin Spacey
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Product Description
The high-energy tale of how two socially awkward Ivy Leaguers, trying to increase their chances with the opposite sex, ended up creating Facebook.
Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg were Harvard undergraduates and best friends–outsiders at a school filled with polished prep-school grads and long-time legacies. They shared both academic brilliance in math and a geeky awkwardness with women.
Eduardo figured their ticket to social acceptance–and sexual success–was getting invited to join one of the university’s Final Clubs, a constellation of elite societies that had groomed generations of the most powerful men in the world and ranked on top of the inflexible hierarchy at Harvard. Mark, with less of an interest in what the campus alpha males thought of him, happened to be a computer genius of the first order.
Which he used to find a more direct route to social stardom: one lonely night, Mark hacked into the university's computer system, creating a ratable database of all the female students on campus–and subsequently crashing the university's servers and nearly getting himself kicked out of school. In that moment, in his Harvard dorm room, the framework for Facebook was born.
What followed–a real-life adventure filled with slick venture capitalists, stunning women, and six-foot-five-inch identical-twin Olympic rowers–makes for one of the most entertaining and compelling books of the year. Before long, Eduardo’s and Mark’s different ideas about Facebook created in their relationship faint cracks, which soon spiraled into out-and-out warfare. The collegiate exuberance that marked their collaboration fell prey to the adult world of lawyers and money. The great irony is that while Facebook succeeded by bringing people together, its very success tore two best friends apart.
The Accidental Billionaires is a compulsively readable story of innocence lost–and of the unusual creation of a company that has revolutionized the way hundreds of millions of people relate to one another.
Ben Mezrich, a Harvard graduate, has published ten books, including the New York Times bestseller Bringing Down the House. He is a columnist for Boston Common and a contributor for Flush magazine. Ben lives in Boston with his wife, Tonya.
Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg were Harvard undergraduates and best friends–outsiders at a school filled with polished prep-school grads and long-time legacies. They shared both academic brilliance in math and a geeky awkwardness with women.
Eduardo figured their ticket to social acceptance–and sexual success–was getting invited to join one of the university’s Final Clubs, a constellation of elite societies that had groomed generations of the most powerful men in the world and ranked on top of the inflexible hierarchy at Harvard. Mark, with less of an interest in what the campus alpha males thought of him, happened to be a computer genius of the first order.
Which he used to find a more direct route to social stardom: one lonely night, Mark hacked into the university's computer system, creating a ratable database of all the female students on campus–and subsequently crashing the university's servers and nearly getting himself kicked out of school. In that moment, in his Harvard dorm room, the framework for Facebook was born.
What followed–a real-life adventure filled with slick venture capitalists, stunning women, and six-foot-five-inch identical-twin Olympic rowers–makes for one of the most entertaining and compelling books of the year. Before long, Eduardo’s and Mark’s different ideas about Facebook created in their relationship faint cracks, which soon spiraled into out-and-out warfare. The collegiate exuberance that marked their collaboration fell prey to the adult world of lawyers and money. The great irony is that while Facebook succeeded by bringing people together, its very success tore two best friends apart.
The Accidental Billionaires is a compulsively readable story of innocence lost–and of the unusual creation of a company that has revolutionized the way hundreds of millions of people relate to one another.
Ben Mezrich, a Harvard graduate, has published ten books, including the New York Times bestseller Bringing Down the House. He is a columnist for Boston Common and a contributor for Flush magazine. Ben lives in Boston with his wife, Tonya.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Mezrich but not as we know him,
By
This review is from: The Accidental Billionaires: Sex, Money, Betrayal and the Founding of Facebook (Paperback)
Interesting read, if only because we all know facebook.Not as good as his other books which I highly recommend. To me the prose of this book was just not Mezrich, but perhaps that is because his reference methods had to be different for this?
14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An interesting account of how Facebook was born and some of the battles during its infancy,
By
This review is from: The Accidental Billionaires: Sex, Money, Betrayal and the Founding of Facebook (Paperback)
Ban Mezrich has written an enjoyable and easy to read account of how Facebook was started by an IT geek Mark Zuckerburg who was a student at Harvard.The book chronicles the early growth and how the web site grows from being just for Harvard students through its expansion to having several million users. Most of the book concentrates on the battles that Mark has with one of his co founders Eduardo Saverin, and a pair of other students who asked Mark to work on their web site who end up as Olympic rowers. The main problem with the book is that Mark Zuckerburg declined to speak to the author about the book. So most of the material is going to have come from the people who are suing or who have sued Mark for what happened after the web site become ultra successful. There are large gaps after Mark leaves Harvard to live in California leaving his fellow co founder in Boston and then New York. The detailed narrative stops in 2005. The author acknowledges that he could not have written the book without Eduardo's help and when the main contributing source is a bitter as Eduardo is after his shareholding is diluted and he is shut out of the business, you have to be slightly sceptical. The book ignores most of the reasons why Facebook became so successful and all of its recent history. There are a brief couple of pages on the outcome of some of the disputes but to me that's not really enough to give them justice. The book is written in the same racy style as all of Ben Mezrich's former books, most of which are about gambling or finance. The author has admitted in the introduction that he has adapted some of the situations to make them more readable. If you are looking for a serious financial history of Facebook, this probably won't be for you. If you are looking something less serious, more exciting and easy to read, this is probably for you
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Inspiring story,
By
This review is from: The Accidental Billionaires: Sex, Money, Betrayal and the Founding of Facebook (Paperback)
This was an inspiring book!I found it a bit uninteresting at the beginning, at least for people that doesn't know what's coming next, but it surprised me after a few pages! Brilliant and I do understand why they're making a film of it! :)
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