The Facebook movie is coming out. Is it real? Based on a true story? Or simply glorified for your viewing pleasure?
In short, the movie is exaggerated, but true. It glorifies everything to garner “Ooohs and Ahhhhs” in the theatre. The biggest discrepancy is the founding of Facebook. Who found it? Who is the mastermind behind this social media powerhouse?
The movie portrays Facebook, or Mark Zuckerberg, paying $65 million for Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss to stop saying they stole his idea for Facebook. The figure is way off – the correct number is $20 million and 1.253 million Facebook shares, equating to approximately $100 million. Nonetheless, the back story is pretty much legit. The 19-year-old Mark Zuckerberg launched thefacebook.com as a Harvard sophomore in February 2004. Collegiates took to the website immediately, propelling it today to 400 million vistors per month.
Instead of discussing further discrepancies, I’d like to shed light on the true story behind facebook. First, let’s go over how Facebook became Facebook. In 2003, 3 Harvard Seniors, Divya Narendra and the Winklevoss brothers were looking to create the website, HarvardConnections.com. In doing so, they needed to replace an existing website designer who didn’t want to do the computer project any longer. In comes Mark Zuckerberg, well-known on the Harvard campus for his hot-or-not Facemash website. Mark agreed to coding the website for the seniors’ requirements to allow only Harvard students to access the website, and then subsequently the rest of the country.
At first, in early December of 2003, Mark was enthusiastic in writing emails to the Harvard Connections team about how he put together the registration pages for students, and how everything was functional. All that needed to be done was patch stuff up. Then, Mark changed his tone a week later, emailing that he was too busy with schoolwork. Obviously, he was stalling so he could build the site himself. The proof is shown when Mark IMed Eduardo Saverin, a schoolmate and initial investor, about how he was delaying the Harvard Connection site until he finishes building Facebook. Then, he IMed two other confidants about how he was going to screw the three partners, but wait until Facebook it out to show them how Facebook is better, and he cannot do their Harvard Connections site. Mark followed suit by opening TheFacebook.com in January 2004, in turn, forcing the three partners to send Mark a letter in February about breach of contract.
In June 2004, Mark moved to Palo Alto to work on Facebook full-time while his former partners built Harvard Connection as ConnectU for a network of 15 schools. In September 2004, ConnectU sued Mark Zuckerman and they eventually settled in Febrary 2008. Now, there’s an appeal from ConnectU contending that Mark wasn’t forthcoming with the stock value during the settlement.
What do I think? There was no formal contract regarding the Harvard classmates so settling the case was just hush money from Mark. I don’t think a legal partnership was formed. That being said, I’m a big believer on a handshake being one’s word, or in this case, a digital handshake. So, Mark was a real jerk here. You might think that nice guys finish last, but the guilt and wrongdoing will eat away at him, trumping any goodwill of throwing millions of dollars at schools. Plus, ConnectU, his former Harvard partners, came out on top here with millions for just two months of conversations. In my mind, Mark is not the owner or leader of a site like Facebook I’d like to follow. If it weren’t for our loyal Facebook fans, I would make a stand to not use the website.
I’ll leave you with one last disturbing action to truly show you the person Mark Zuckerman is. In 2004, Mark went as far as computer hacking into ConnectU’s website, de-activating 20 or more accounts and including fake profiles and editing profiles. He was linked into the ConnectU servers for a long time watching their every action. He was probably keeping an eye on the competition, but isn’t this totally against the Facebook code of computer security privacy. What kind of leader are we following who takes criminal actions in hacking into other sites? Thumbs down here for Mark, and a thumbs up for the movie revealing the true Facebook so-called founder.
