The Accidental Billionaires Audiobook By Ben Mezrich cover art

The Accidental Billionaires

The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal

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The Accidental Billionaires

By: Ben Mezrich
Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
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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.




©2009 Ben Mezrich; (P)2009 Random House Biographies & Memoirs Content Creation & Social Media History & Culture Professionals & Academics Science & Technology Technology & Society Thought-Provoking

Critic reviews

"High-octane page-turners, replete with sex, skullduggery and plot twists worthy of James Patterson"--New York Times

“The book is better; you should read the book” —A-Rod

“Uproarious. . . . Stimulating enough to keep even an unmedicated narcoleptic awake.”
—The Washington Times
“Mezrich’s prose has a cinematic flavor.”
—The Boston Globe
“You won’t be able to put the book down. The story’s far too compelling, and entirely too personal, to toss aside.”
—The Oregonian

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Featured Article Audible Essentials The Top 100 Screen Adaptations of All Time
Fascinating Startup Story • Engaging Content • Perfect Narrator • Interesting Information • Great Voice

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Well paced story of the start-up of Facebook. Can't wait until Zuckerberg comes out with his version:).

couldn't turn it off

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Well read, is a little techy but not to much to go over the top but still enought for the computer geeks... Just talks about the early years of facebook but it still entertaining...

Great Listen

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very interesting story and lots to be learned for all the web entrepreneurs out there...

I really enjoyed listening to this book...

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Good book overall but the producer should have told the performer that Thiel is pronounced "teal" not "theel". Every time he said that - at least a dozen times - it was like nails on a chalkboard. Also caught a "silicone valley".

Pronunciation

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This is such an interesting and timely story about something that has changed the world. But the writing is so gratuitous it interferes with hte storytelling. For example, the author's way of identifying two charaters as identical twins..."they were the product of a single fertilized ovum that divided in two like the pages of a book."

The story drags needlessly due to these metaphors and many repeated facts.

Still, worth the read.

Great story, poorly written

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