The Accidental Billionaires (50-99)

SUMMARY

Mark is continuing to work on his website but the houses that had a more elaborate security system he has to break into the house and download the pictures while in the room. He almost gets caught because while he was in one of the rooms a couple comes in and they seem like they would stay awhile but they eventually leave. Within 72 hours after he completed everything the site was viral and every group on campus was using it. He felt he was in huge trouble so he shut down the whole thing. The Crimson did a story on Mark and his website and when Divya, Tyler and Cameron seen the article, they wanted Mark to be the programmer for their website. They emailed him and Mark shows the email to Eduardo, he told Mark that he should maybe steer clear of them but he decides it might be interesting. He met with the twins and this meeting only heightened his interest. In December after Eduardo is an official member of the Phoenix and has just gotten back from visiting his family in Miami, Mark tells him about the Facebook. He described it as a final club but online, exclusive, sexy and fun. The only thing was he needed money, a thousand dollars, and that's why he went to Eduardo and they decided to split the website 30 70. By January of 2004 Tyler, Cameron and Divya have had 2 months of emails between Mark saying that he was doing schoolwork and towards the last emails was the only time he brought up an issue with the site. The twins thought that maybe it was just Mark losing interest and that it was time to find an even newer programmer because he was all burned up. By the beginning of Ferbruary, the Facebook had been live. Eduardo sent it to all his Phoenix buddies and they hoped by sending it to them, the Facebook would go viral.

QUOTE

"Autistic wasn't the right word; socially awkward probably covered it. There were dozens of kids like that all over Harvard," (Mezrich 62).

REACTION

This quote was taken after Divya called Mark socially autistic and it made me really think about the facts that a lot of geniuses had a form of high functioning autism like Einstein and Bill Gates. Mark Zuckerberg is just another super genius that falls into this category. Also, the whole claiming of the idea of Facebook is so confusing. The idea was thrown around so many times, altered a little, then had a new name to it. Even the social networks there are today like myspace is almost identical.