So, reading the article about the battle for Facebook was interesting, but sort of disconnected for me. I don't have anything personally invested in Facebook anymore, but it was still cool to learn about it's founding and the personal wars that rage/raged throughout its short history.
I also decided founder, Mark Zuckerberg, is a big jerk. The article describes how he used many people to further his Facebook project without apparent concern for the effect it might have on those people. Allegedly he stole the idea of Facebook from three fellow Harvard classmates. One is quoted as saying, "We got royally screwed," Divya Narendra. According to these students, they had a plan for Facebook, but needed Mark's help to get it up and running. He said he would help, but kept putting it off until finally he revealed he had created his own Facebook website.
Facing these allegations Mark has, "presented himself as the aggrieved party: "I try to shrug it off as a minor annoyance that whenever I do something successful, every capitalist out there wants a piece of the action." The idea of a social-networking site, he told the Crimson, was in the air at Harvard. "There aren't very many new ideas floating around," he said. "The facebook isn't even a very novel idea. It's taken from all these others. And ours was that we're going to do it on the level of schools.""
Later in his career Mark burned another friend. Enuardo Saverin, Mark's suite mate in college and one of his closest friends was enlisted by Mark to help incorporate the site. Later in both their careers they had a falling out which led to a transfer of, "intellecual-propery rights and membership interests". This transfer, made by Mark, caused the, "value of Saverin's stock [to become] unhinged from any further growth of Facebook, and Saverin was expunged as an employee."
Throughout the article a clear path is burned through Mark's friends and associates which shows that Mark's drive to make Facebook the next "MTV" was uninhibited by personal feeling; nothing was going to stand in his way. "The lesson to those around Zuckerberg was clear: Nobody, not even the college roommate who had once been his closest confidant, was going to stand in his way. "It seemed like in all his dealings, it was a big deal to him that he be the CEO when he got the first round of financing, and that he maintain control of the company," says Haggerty. "He knows where he wants to go: Facebook everywhere.""
I stated at the beginning of this blog that Mark Zuckerberg was a jerk. And though the article does prove he was ruthless in his endeavors to make Facebook the best and brightest social network, perhaps Mark wasn't so much a jerk and more like a good businessman.
According Forbes Magazine, Mark Zuckerberg is worth 6.9 Billion Dollars and counting (http://www.forbes.com/profile/mark-zuckerberg). Mark is nothing if not a shrewd businessman. He is ruthless, but business isn't about personal feeling; it's about success. Or is it? At 24, Mark has amassed a large amount of enemies, a large amount of wealth, and a large of amount of both respect and disrespect. Should a business be run on integrity? Or has integrity become an antiquated word in todays business world? It will be interesting to see Mark and Facebook in the future and see where Mark's ambitions have led him.
I've also hyperlinked to the trailer for the the Golden Globe winning movie The Social Network which chronicles the story of Facebook:
I commend you on deleting your Facebook. So many people put way too much information on there than need be. It definitely wastes a lot of time and can be rather addictive. But I always find it funny when I haven't been on for awhile how I don't miss it and suddenly get so much more accomplished. I guess it is a fad, but I'm not so sure how quickly it will be over with. Zuckerberg does seem like a jerk, but I'm not so sure if he did steal the idea but he really didn't go about it in the right way. I think he would be more respected if he could work better with his colleagues and not fire or run them out of his business.
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