"The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Genius, and Betrayal," by Ben Mezrich (Doubleday, 260 pages, $25).
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DAYTON, Ohio — In a mere five years Facebook has become the dominant social networking site on the Internet. What began as a prank on the campus of Harvard University is now a worldwide sensation. Mark Zuckerberg was the prankster who had the original idea. Today, at 25 years of age he is probably the world's youngest billionaire.
So how did this wildly successful enterprise get started? Ben Mezrich explores the foundations of Facebook in "The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Genius, and Betrayal." It has already been optioned for a Hollywood film.
It is the story of two friends. Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin met at Harvard. Bright kids — Saverin had already made $300,000 trading oil futures. Zuckerberg invented a device for MP3 players when he was still in high school. Microsoft offered him over $1 million for it. He turned them down.
Zuckerberg was the computer nerd. He had a hard time finding dates. The idea for Facebook originated in a prank he devised — he hacked into various computers on campus to create a Web site with photos of every female student on campus.
So who is this genius? That's what I wanted to know. What makes Zuckerberg tick? The author had access to his friend Eduardo. On page 241 Eduardo realizes "maybe he'd never known Mark Zuckerberg." Oh, great.
That's the fatal flaw in this book. Zuckerberg refused to talk to Mezrich. The author claims to have had access to "numerous inside sources, though these sources have asked to remain anonymous." Apparently they didn't know any more about Zuckerberg that his former friend Eduardo did.
This becomes mostly the story of how Zuckerberg turned his pal Eduardo's 30 percent stake in Facebook into nothing. Eduardo is clueless. He seemed to lack the maturity and legal savvy to understand the contractual sleight of hand that forced him out of the company. Apparently, he's still trying to recover the billions he believes he deserves.
"The Accidental Billionaires" has another serious flaw; it's nonfiction but is mostly written like fiction. The author imagines what happened, the conversations, the facial expressions, the reactions and the clothes. Here's a typical example:
"We can picture what must have happened next: Eduardo spinning through the revolving glass door of a midtown Bank of America office, his face a mask of pure determination, his oxford shirt soaked with sweat from either a subway ride or 20 minutes trapped in a traffic-bound cab."
We learn about the origins of Facebook. The founder, Mark Zuckerberg, remains an enigma. At one point someone observes that "worse yet, Mark was Mark — hard enough to read in person, but on the phone he was a complete mystery."
The central figure behind Facebook is a mere shadow flitting across these pages. In the end, Facebook became all about the billions it might be worth. This lightweight history of Facebook seems to be all about the millions this book is supposedly worth.
Vick Mickunas writes for the Dayton Daily News. E-mail: vick(at)vickmickunas.com.
