‘The Facebook Effect’ reveals story of company’s founding
For a company bent on “making the world more open and connected,” a good bit of mystery shrouds the early days of Facebook Inc.
Mark Zuckerberg, who founded the website as a Harvard student in 2004, reached a settlement with two former classmates who had accused him of stealing their idea; he has also been accused by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin of unfairly pushing him out.
Even now, new unflattering details about the Palo Alto company’s early days continue to trickle out. A transcript of instant messages recently surfaced that allegedly show Zuckerberg describing users in critical terms for entrusting Facebook with their data.
Many questions remain about Zuckerberg himself. Who is this young man in control of so much of the world’s personal data? And as the company comes under fire from critics over privacy issues, the persistently sketchy understanding of Facebook’s DNA has compounded its woes.
For that reason alone, the publication by Simon & Schuster of “The Facebook Effect: The Insider Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World” could not be better timed.
David Kirkpatrick, a Fortune magazine reporter, presents the first authoritative account of Facebook’s founding, its early days, and Zuckerberg himself.
What emerges is a picture of adolescence, rather than arrogance or conniving. Both the company and its founder had enormous expectations and responsibilities foisted upon them at an early age, and both have endured very public scrutiny of their growing pains.
In a company run by 20-somethings, some immature missteps are perhaps inevitable, and Kirkpatrick captures the heady early days with detailed reporting and entertaining anecdotes.
In one, Zuckerberg and his cohort purposely sabotage a meeting with the partners at Sequoia Capital, one of Silicon Valley’s preeminent venture capital firms, as revenge for a friend’s bad experience with the investors. Zuckerberg showed up late for the meeting wearing pajamas, and pitched them a side project.
But for the most part, Zuckerberg has proved deft at navigating the often treacherous world of venture capitalists and eager buyers. Both Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. wanted to buy Facebook for enormous sums of money, but he refused.
From the outset, Kirkpatrick reveals, Zuckerberg has been motivated by his zeal to make Facebook a transformative company. “We’re going to change the world,” Zuckerberg says. “I think we can make the world a more open place.”
In the last six years, he has done as much. Political campaigns now rely on Facebook. Small businesses and large corporations alike advertise on the site and use it to communicate with customers.
But Facebook also continues to challenge, often making changes that leave users uncomfortable with how their personal data are used. Kirkpatrick skirts around these issues at a time when they warrant a much fuller treatment.
But he does not dismiss concerns that Facebook may overplay its hand, and warns that making more personal information public “could make Facebook feel more like a place for marketing and less like a place for friendship.”
Kirkpatrick was among the first mainstream journalists to follow the Facebook story closely. He won Zuckerberg’s trust early on, and was even encouraged to write the book.
His access and obvious affection for Facebook does not, however, make the book a whitewash. Plenty of unseemly details are revealed, and Kirkpatrick holds Zuckerberg accountable for his early gaffes.
For all the anecdotes, however, the book is not about simple gossip. There is another one for that: “The Accidental Billionaires” by Ben Mezrich, is a sensationalized retelling of Facebook’s early days. Dismissed by Facebook, Mezrich’s book is nonetheless the basis for a film, “The Social Network,” due for release this year.
By contrast, “The Facebook Effect” is a well-reported account of the first six years of one of the most important companies on Earth. As Kirkpatrick writes, “The company is increasingly embedded in the fabric of modern life and culture. Facebook’s social impact continues to broaden.”
David Gelles is a San Francisco-based technology reporter for the Financial Times of London, in which this review first appeared.
