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Loading... The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook A Tale of Sex,…by Ben Mezrich
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. It took me a lot longer to read then it should have cause I didn't like any of the characters. I didn't get the feeling that I was "coming up" with them. I really enjoyed Bringing Down the House by Mezrich, and given the subject matter of this book, my expectations were perhaps, too high. I didn't feel that the author cared about the characters at all. I guess the book didn't have to be good, as long as the premise of it was juicy enough to market. I feel like Mezrich concentrated to much on nailing the story. The story was suppose to be "inspired" by the true events. That gives you all the latitude you need to write a compelling, character rich story. Its not a biography, its fiction. So write fiction (  ) EnjoyerofCheese | Nov 24, 2009 |  It was interesting to get an 'inside' story of how Facebook was created. While the author attempted to suggest possibilities of what may have happened during the creation, his word choices were not strong enough to be entirely believable. His writing could have been more confident. I'm disappointed the book did not portray both " creators' " stories behind Facebook. I read this and felt a tone of tattling and complaining. (  ) heidifk | Nov 5, 2009 | Like his idol, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg drops out of Harvard to build Facebook. But is the idea of Facebook his? Or, was it "borrowed" from other classmates? Can an idea be stolen? lh 10/31/09 PotomacLibrary | Oct 31, 2009 | I really enjoyed reading this book and am fascinated by how Facebook began and what it has turned into since. It isn't as much of a "tale of sex, money & betrayal" as they make it out to be but it is very interesting and I do suggest it if you are interested in knowing how this phenomenon (which is now over 250 million people strong) began. (  ) julesm | Oct 27, 2009 | After having read Bringing Down the House and Rigged, this was a huge disappointment to me. Also the title basically promised "sex, money . . ." as the first two things and the sex part were hardly believable if they even happened. Much of the book may have been fabricated. Only one person, who ended up having a falling out with Zuckerburg, was the source for Mezrich, so I felt the book just fell flat. It could have and should have been so much more. (  ) writergal85 | Oct 4, 2009 | 
 There’s a fascinating book in Facebook’s origins, no doubt—one that explores the near-instantaneous transformation of undergraduates to captains of industry and helps us understand why the world was ready for the kind of social networking Facebook was designed to facilitate. But Mezrich doesn’t want to write it. He wants to start every chapter with an overbaked recreation and spice up the saga of stock options with metaphors right out of Creative Writing 101.  [W]hile Mr Mezrich spins a colourful tale... his take on the internal battles at Facebook is flawed. Mr Zuckerberg refused to be interviewed for the book, so the narrative is missing a crucial perspective. And Mr Mezrich appears to have relied heavily on sources with large axes to grind against Facebook’s boss. Has Mr. Mezrich done anything wrong in grossly embellishing, exaggerating and tarting up his material as if he were writing a screenplay? Should the tactics of a script or roman à clef be used for a purportedly nonfiction chronicle? It's a sexy idea, one that promises either a juicy tell-all or a hard-hitting exposé. The Accidental Billionaires is neither.
Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0385529376, Hardcover)Amazon Exclusive: Kevin Spacey on The Accidental Billionaires Kevin Spacey’s films include Superman Returns, Beyond the Sea, The Usual Suspects, American Beauty, Swimming with Sharks, Seven, L.A. Confidential, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Negotiator, Hurlyburly, K-Pax, and The Shipping News. He will next be seen in Men Who Stare at Goats opposite George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, and Jeff Bridges, as well as Nick Moran’s film Telstar opposite Colm O’Neil and Pam Ferris. Read his exclusive Amazon guest review of The Accidental Billionaires: I first met Ben Mezrich when I produced and starred in 21, the film adaptation of his great bestseller Bringing Down the House. Ben has a gift for finding high-energy, strange-but-true tales and The Accidental Billionaires is no exception. You may think you know the story of the Facebook phenomenon, but you haven’t heard the whole story and never like this. Recreating the unbelievable rise of the world's biggest social network—not to mention the planet's youngest billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg—Ben tells a captivating story of betrayal, vast amounts of cash, and two friends who revolutionized the way humans connect to one another—only to have an enormous falling out and never speak again. Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg were two geeky, socially awkward Harvard undergrads who wanted nothing more than to be cool. While Eduardo chose the more straightforward path of trying to gain acceptance into one of the school's ultra-posh, semi-secret Final Clubs, Mark used his computer skills by hacking into Harvard's computers, pulling up all the pictures of every girl on campus to create a sort of "hot-or-not" site exclusive to Harvard. Though the prank nearly got Mark kicked out of college, he and Eduardo realized that they were on to something big. Thus, the initial concept of Facebook was born; what happened next, however, was right out of a Hollywood thriller. The Accidental Billionaires is the perfect pairing of author and subject. It's pure summer fun—a juicy, fast-paced, unputdownable Mezrich tale that adds to his canon of lad lit. And Hollywood has come calling again: I'm currently working with Dana Brunetti, Scott Rudin, Mike Deluca, and Aaron Sorkin on the movie adaptation of The Accidental Billionaires. If the book is any indication, the film is going to be a must see.—Kevin Spacey(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 26 Jun 2009 09:59:51 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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