Synopsis
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
“The Social Network, the much anticipated movie…adapted from Ben Mezrich’s book The Accidental Billionaires.” —The New York Times
Best friends Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg had spent many lonely nights looking for a way to stand out among Harvard University’s elite, comptetitive, and accomplished student body. Then, in 2003, Zuckerberg hacked into Harvard’s computers, crashed the campus network, almost got himself expelled, and was inspired to create Facebook, the social networking site that has since revolutionized communication around the world.
With Saverin’s funding their tiny start-up went from dorm room to Silicon Valley. But conflicting ideas about Facebook’s future transformed the friends into enemies. Soon, the undergraduate exuberance that marked their collaboration turned into out-and-out warfare as it fell prey to the adult world of venture capitalists, big money, lawyers.
About Ben Mezrich
See more books from this AuthorProbably not. But “The Accidental Billionaires” is so obviously dramatized, and so clearly unreliable, that there’s no mistaking it for a serious document.
Read Full Review of The Accidental Billionaires: ... | See more reviews from NY TimesReaders of...will gain as little sense of the drama in the company’s rise as they will of Mr. Zuckerberg role in the story. The author’s lack of contact with his central character seems to have stupefied his storytelling skills.
Read Full Review of The Accidental Billionaires: ... | See more reviews from WSJ onlineMezrich’s chief informant is Eduardo Saverin... But Saverin’s bitterness over what he perceives as a calculated campaign to devalue his stake in the company and write him out of the origin story soaks the whole book in self-pity.
Read Full Review of The Accidental Billionaires: ... | See more reviews from AV ClubZuckerberg declined to talk for the book...All this might be forgivable if the end product were actually a spicy page-turner. But its few bits of dirt — a party here, a hookup there — feel pretty tame.
Read Full Review of The Accidental Billionaires: ...Besides, the rise of Facebook and the lawsuits...are both very real and wholly fascinating — and without the facts, the embellished, fictitious version of Zuckerberg that Mezrich paints in his book becomes a much less compelling character.
Read Full Review of The Accidental Billionaires: ... | See more reviews from National Post artsBut despite an emphasis on engaging characters and a compelling story, and despite his self-described immersion in the world of Facebook’s founders, Mezrich’s is a haphazard and clumsy book.
Read Full Review of The Accidental Billionaires: ...There is simply no way of knowing how much of the story is the truth, and how much has been fabricated or exaggerated...All that said, this is a fascinating read.
Read Full Review of The Accidental Billionaires: ...Like the many Facebook pages...isn?t adverse to bending the truth a degree or two. This is a book with nerve about an entrepreneur with nerve. Highly recommended for those with chutzpah who want to go out west and beat the bank.
Read Full Review of The Accidental Billionaires: ...An aggregated and normalized score based on 414 user ratings from iDreamBooks & iTunes