The Accidental Billionaires (151-196)

SUMMARY

Mark's sophomore year was ending and he and Eduardo needed to figure out what they were going to do for the summer. Eduardo got accepted to an internship in New York and Mark was not only concentrating on thefacebook, but also a new software. Mark brought up him going to Silicon Valley to continue working out there and with that Eduardo did not feel as bad leaving for New York. By May of 2004, Divya, Tyler and Cameron somehow launched ConnectU and they were waiting to see if this social network would take off like thefacebook had. Back in California, coincidentally, Mark and his team of programmers were living on the same street as Sean Parker. He took this as a sign, and wedged his way into becoming apart of thefacebook. He was suppose to be only staying as a house guest but he continued to set Mark up on business meeting without Eduardo, he even began to question Eduardo's dedication to the site. While he was doubting Eduardo's involvement, Eduardo quit his internship on his first day and spent a month in New York trying to get ads and successful got Y2K to be one. After a month apart, Eduardo was headed to California to see Mark and the progress but instead he was sent to a party, the types of parties Mark and his team have been going to all summer. They also went to business meetings and dinners in hopes of getting even more money and they were offering millions to buy thefacebook off of them but they were not willing. Meanwhile, thefacebook has become international, students in England are now on it and Eduardo is beginning to wonder if Mark respect him as the business man of their site. He sends Mark a letter airing his grievances to which Mark responds with stories of going out and partying with Sean. The final straw for Eduardo was when Sean set up a business meeting with VCs and Eduardo was not present. To get his point across, he went to a bank and froze all funds for thefacebook.

QUOTE

"--as cliche as it sounded, it was simply a matter of who had wanted it more" (Mezrich 187).

REACTION

This quote was taken after the twins had lost to a Dutch crew team in England. They lost the race by two seconds and then found out that thefacebook was in schools outside of the United States and used this saying again. It did come down to whoever had the ability of creating a social site faster than the other so I thought this quote was very fitting. What I don't understand is why is Mark letting Sean become a part of thefacebook because he's not really contributing to it any way, except for the publicity, but if Mark were on his own, he would have probably reached the same status he's at with Sean. Eduardo has a right to be concerned with Mark and Sean's relationship because Sean seems like he's trying to take Eduardo's place in the website and the twins seem like they're just bitter about the whole thing.