The Accidental Billionaires
A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal
by Ben Mezrich · first published 2009
13% recommend69% neutral19% critical
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
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
…Effect is about the product and company Facebook, as opposed to Zuckerberg, per se. In tone, it more closely resembles business non-fiction, or long-form journalism, than the celebrity biopic style of The Accidental Billionaires, on which the film is based. So it's less fun as beach reading, but in my opinion more accurate, and probably of more use to somebody in the business. Kirkpatrick had unprecedented access to much of…
on “The Face of Facebook” ↗You should read the book "The Accidental Billionaires", the screenplay is based on that book. As with every movie, they had to shortening some scenes like "hacking" houses websites and coding Facemesh in one night (in the book and in reality it was not…
on “Coding the Movies – Don’t Fake It” ↗Ben Mezrich, author of the Accidental Billionaires which was later adapted into the Social Network, has a differing opinion: like Liars Poker and Wall Street, the movie made Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg more well known and popular than before.
on “Facebook's PR feels broken” ↗…television when they claimed that they had no prior knowledge of The Social Network on Today (one of the morning shows). Random House's general counsel confirmed that Ben Mezrich interviewed them for The Accidental Billionaires. - I did meet Larry Summers during his monthly office hours while he was president of Harvard. His behavior then was reprehensible, and he hasn't changed a bit. - Just about everyone primarily involved…
on “The Winklevosses Vs. Silicon Valley” ↗Ben Mezrich asked me if I would co-operate with him for "The Accidental Billionaires" and I declined after considering his history of twisting characters in "Bringing Down The House," which got made into 21. I didn't hear from anyone after that, and my name was mis-spelled in his book.
on “Damning Zuckerberg IMs confirmed” ↗…heavily based on interviews with Eduardo Saverin. Does anyone know if this is true? EDIT: from his Wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduardo_Saverin): The Social Network is based on the book The Accidental Billionaires in which Saverin served as the main consultant for author Ben Mezrich.
on “Eduardo Saverin: What I Learned From Watching “The Social Network”” ↗> grow to be one of youngest billionaires Are you equating intelligence with networth? :-) I think it's more like this https://www.amazon.com/Accidental-Billionaires-Founding-Face...
on “Mark Zuckerberg Is Building an AI Agent to Help Him Be CEO” ↗In David Kirkpatrick's book The Facebook Effect, which was basically the positive counterpart book at the time to Ben Mezrich's The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, Kirkpatrick talks on the first few pages how Facebook's viral and collaborative social network allowed for protests and eventually political revolutions to be organized in various countries. He says…
on “Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy” ↗…and asked the Doubleday division of Random House to publish it. Doubleday rejected Mr. Greenspan’s book, and subsequently published a different account of Facebook’s founding by Ben Mezrich titled, The Accidental Billionaires, which later provided the basis for the movie The Social Network. Mr. Greenspan responded by suing Random House, Mezrich and his company, and Columbia Pictures, which had released The Social Network.…
Did you guys read the book? "Accidental Billionaires" How well do you think the movie is going to do?
on “Facebook First Teaser Video” ↗Funny, I read this and found myself intrigued and wanting to know more about what makes Mark Zuckerberg tick. Having witnessed Facebook's rise, reading Accidental Billionaires, hearing about the various lawsuits, seeing the instant messages, waiting in anticipation for the Sorkin movie, and now learning that Mark is a Classics nut... well, this guy is nothing if not interesting.…
on “The Face of Facebook” ↗I don't think that's plausible, he would have to had at least a few small ones. And if I recall my memory of reading Facebook Effect and Accidental Billionaires, both books say that he was able to get something, though nothing big. But more importantly, does that matter? There are tons of great projects here on HN that are never able to get any customers.…
on “How Eduardo Saverin Sold Facebook Ads in 2004” ↗What do you guys think of this movie? Going to be any good? Did you read the book? "Accidental Billionaires" what did you think? I honestly was looking for more out of the book, hopefully the movie is able to go deeper and add more drama.
on “Facebook First Teaser Video” ↗The narrative is based on the book "Accidental Billionaires" so the major conflicts will be with the Winklevoss twins and Eduardo Saverin. I think the book fills in a lot of gaps with fiction and the movie will probably do the same. The author, Ben Mezrich,…
on “Full Trailer For Facebook Movie ‘The Social Network’ Hits The Web” ↗Yeah, based heavily off the book The Accidental Billionaires, which has received heavy criticism -- And agreed, I thought it was a fictional movie based on loose reality but I really enjoyed it, felt very Shakespearean in the betrayal parts of the story.
on “Aaron Sorkin: Steve Jobs biopic to be in three acts, all in real time.” ↗