In an author’s note, Mezrich allows that he invents dialogue, synthesizes details, and puts imagined thoughts into his characters’ heads. “Accidental Billionaires” tells the story of Mark Zuckerberg and the creation of Facebook. Is the ever-evolving Internet, which is transforming almost every aspect of civilization, susceptible to serious historical storytelling? Will the true tale of the Web ever be told? And then allegations surfaced that Mezrich embellished scenes and concocted many of the details in his supposedly true tale.ĭrake Bennett, whose detailed reporting in The Boston Globe broke the story the week after “21” opened, concluded that “Bringing Down the House” was “not a work of ‘nonfiction’ in any meaningful sense of the word.” So readers may approach Mezrich’s new book, The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal with some trepidation.īut while they would be right to worry about the truth of Mezrich’s account, a more comprehensive question should stir them as well.

His bestseller “Bringing Down the House,” about card-counting Massachusetts Institute of Technology whiz kids beating the odds in Vegas, was the basis of “21,” a Hollywood blockbuster produced by Kevin Spacey. The great irony is that Facebook succeeded by bringing people together - but its very success tore two best friends apart.In 2003, author Ben Mezrich – rather like a cool card shark running the table – was on a roll. 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. Narrowly escaping expulsion, the two misfits refocused the site into something less controversial - 'The Facebook' - and watched as it spread like a wildfire across campuses around the country, along with their popularity. Yet that all changed when master-hacker Mark crashed the university's entire computer system by creating a rateable database of female students.

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.

The accidental billionaires book