The Accidental Billionaires

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

By: Ben Mezrich

Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain

Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

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 listenable 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 best seller 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

I really enjoyed listening to this book...

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

Pronunciation

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".

couldn't turn it off

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

Great Listen

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...

It could have been better.

I was expecting more detail in what happened after the lawsuits were filed. A lot time was wasted on describing things that had no overall impact on the outcome.

I didn't want to leave my car

I usually listen to audio books in my car and this was one of those books that I wanted to stay in the car and keep listening to. Mike Chamberlain has a great voice for this book and the story was very engaging. If you're interested in how online business come to be, this is a must read.

Liked the movie better but not bad

One of those rare cases where the movie was better than the book. The book leaves you with the same impression though - Mark Zuckerburg is a bit of a jerk. And Sean Parker is a first class moocher. Whether these are completely accurate in real life, I can't say. I am sure Parker provided more value than one might think from the story (book or movie) and I am sure that, from Zuckerburg's perspective, there is another side of the story. Good book. I would like to read/listen to another book on the early days of Facebook to see if the portrayals of these two are consistent.

Great story, poorly written

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.

Insights on gauging a business partners character

having been pretty much in Savarins shoes myself and being shafted by someone like Zuckerberg it's comforting to hear this story and helped me reflect and learn from my experiences. There's more to life than money, fame and bridge burning to better oneself. Now I can spot snakes a mile off. straight up book which told it how it is.

Old but still good

This book was written almost 10 years ago now, but what matters in the Facebook story is what happened in the whirlwind years of the founding. They say truth is stranger than fiction, and what happened between Zuckerbeg, Saverin and later Parker could not have been fantazised by Hollywood itself. It's a must read