The Accidental Billionaires - Ben Mezrich

 This is the story that inspired the movie 'The Social Network' on Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg. It is interesting to see how Mark builds his company, his single most desire to do whatever it takes to make the company reach its full potential.

The book begins with identical twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss (rowing champions who went on to represent the US in the 2008 Olympics and who later on became bitcoin billionaires) and their friend Divya Narendra, working on a project - a site called Harvard Connection. Their coder leaves them midway so they hire a junior Mark Zukerberg to complete the coding. Midway through this project Mark gets an idea to start thefacebook, a site that allows people to share their profiles and make friends on campus. The brothers realise that Mark had lied to them when he said he was busy and that he may have got the idea for Facebook from their social networking site. But Mark is adamant and says he only helped them and that his idea was his own. He teams up with his senior Eduardo Saverin who funds him initially until they test it out. It becomes a huge hit and soon Saverin finds himself out of the company as well as Sean Parker, the man who founded and lost Napster and Plazzo, walks in an helps Mark take it to the next level - with an investment from Peter Thiel. The Winklevoss brothers and Saverin fight their battles legally and it is said that they have been settled with.

Few things interested me. That you cannot grow something big with the same team - sometimes you need a different energy if this team is not open to growth. The leader is important and his single minded commitment is important - here Mark's was important - Saverin could not see the big picture as Sean Parker did. Mark's single minded focus to take Facebook to its potential is what gave him the clarity to make the tough choices - which included dumping Parker when he messes up. And that one line - that Mark had given up a million dollar job with Microsoft and that money was not his driver was another highly interesting feature. I found the Winklevoss brothers most fascinating too - such achievers.

Enjoyed the book though it has a style that annoyed me. The content made up for it. Mezrich himself is a Harvard grad who wrote ten books.