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Saturday, March 19, 2011

Review: The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich

Goodreads: You may think you know the story of the Facebook phenomenon, but you haven’t heard the whole story and never like this. Recreating the unbelievable rise of the world's biggest social network—not to mention the planet's youngest billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg—Ben tells a captivating story of betrayal, vast amounts of cash, and two friends who revolutionized the way humans connect to one another—only to have an enormous falling out and never speak again.

Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg were two geeky, socially awkward Harvard undergrads who wanted nothing more than to be cool. While Eduardo chose the more straightforward path of trying to gain acceptance into one of the school's ultra-posh, semi-secret Final Clubs, Mark used his computer skills by hacking into Harvard's computers, pulling up all the pictures of every girl on campus to create a sort of "hot-or-not" site exclusive to Harvard. Though the prank nearly got Mark kicked out of college, he and Eduardo realized that they were on to something big. Thus, the initial concept of Facebook was born; what happened next, however, was right out of a Hollywood thriller.


Kritters Thoughts: From the true story in the news to the movie - I have seen and heard everything about the history of how Facebook was started and the person Mark Zuckerberg is. The news covered everything from a very logical side where everyone's opinions were shared. The movie definitely did not side with Zuckerberg.

The book - a whole different story (pun intended). Seeing as some of the people involved decided not to partake in the interviews, I felt that this book was very one-sided. I think it should have be renamed - Eduardo's story because the author definitely interviewed him and the story was really based on him and his adventures. A co-founder of facebook and its first investor - he is also on the list of people who Mark screwed over on his way to becoming the youngest billionaire.

I would pass this book onto those who are interested in the facebook story and want to hear something different from what was told in the movie and in the news. A great read with an interesting take on the story of facebook.

Rating:definitely a good read, but can't read two in a row

Pages: 288

Cover Challenge Jan-March: From One to the Next

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