The Accidental Billionaires: Sex, Money, Betrayal and the Founding of Facebook

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Arrow, 2010 - Biography & Autobiography - 260 pages

The New York Times bestseller and inspiration for the Oscar-winning movie, The Social Network

Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg - an awkward maths prodigy and a painfully shy computer genius - were never going to fit in at elite, polished Harvard. Yet that all changed when master-hacker Mark crashed the university's entire computer system by creating a rateable database of female students. Narrowly escaping expulsion, the two misfits refocused the site into something less controversial - 'The Facebook' - and watched as it spread like wildfire across campuses around the country, and their popularity exploded in the process.

Yet amidst the dizzying levels of cash and glamour, as Silicon Valley, venture capitalists and reams of girls beckoned, the first cracks in their friendship started to appear. And what began as a simple argument spiralled into an out-and-out war. As Facebook rose to stratospheric heights by bringing people together - its very success tore two best friends apart.

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About the author (2010)

Ben Mezrich was born in 1969 and received a degree in social studies from Harvard University in 1991. He originally wrote fiction, occasionally under the pseudonym Holden Scott, before switching to nonfiction. His nonfiction works include Ugly Americans, Busting Vegas, Rigged, and Sex on the Moon: The Amazing Story Behind the Most Audacious Heist in History. Two of his books were made into films. In 2008, Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions was made into the film 21 and in 2010, The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, a Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal was made into the film Social Network. He appeared on Court TV in the series High Stakes with Ben Mezrich and has hosted the World Series of Blackjack.

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