Even the biggest of businesses can start in the smallest of places. Every day, people scroll through Facebook- sorry…Meta, to look at their feeds in a bid to kill time, or sometimes just see what people are doing with their lives. Well, this piece of social media, which is worth $554b today, all started in a university dorm by a young man named Mark Zuckerberg.
2010’s The Social Network shows the polarising journey of Zuckerberg, who would make many questionably moral decisions on his way to launching his virtual empire. Starting out as a revenge mission against his ex-girlfriend, Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) sees his controversial online stunt as a reveal to a gap in the market; the ability to share interests, relationship status, photos and more.
There was one small issue though, which was Facebook was not entirely Zuckerberg’s idea. Kind of. After an approach to a similar idea for a social networking site from the Winklevoss twins and business partner Divya Narendra, Zuckerberg took the idea and built it in his image with his and partner Eduaro Saverin’s (Andrew Garfield) vision; TheFacebook.
Of course, turning his back on investors led to a lawsuit, and as Zuckberberg found himself being influenced by bigger names as the money came in, meeting Napster founder Sean Parker proved to be a poisoned chalice. Swayed by Parker’s advice, Zuckerberg forced former friend Eduardo Saverin out, leading to another lawsuit.
Despite taking Facebook all over the world and becoming one of the world’s richest men, Zuckerberg was forced to pay out millions of dollars in settlements and caused many of his closest allies to turn their back on him. Risking his reputation, relationships and friendships, Mark Zuckerberg risked it all to change the face of social media as we know it. Even in 2023, he is regarded as an extremely controversial figure in the world of business.
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