| David Kirkpatrick, 2010, Virgin Books, 384 pages, £11.99. |
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At a high-powered meeting of wealthy figures from the technology
industry, someone whispered in my ear about the youngest billionaire
there: "He just isn't convincing as a CEO.” Having come across Mark
Zuckerberg a couple of times and found him rather a low voltage
presence, I felt some sympathy with that view. Then I read The Facebook
Effect, David Kirkpatrick’s masterful account of the short history of
the social network founded at Harvard just six years ago by Mr
Zuckerberg, and my view was changed radically. Why? Because as the story
of Facebook’s extraordinary rise from a bedroom start-up to a global web
superpower unfolds, the sheer cussed cleverness of its founder becomes
ever more evident.
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| The author, a journalist from Fortune magazine, has had
unprecedented access to Zuckerberg, so it is not surprising that a
positive picture has emerged. It is a breathtaking ride, as
thefacebook.com, one of many website ideas tried out by Zuckerberg as a
computer science student at Harvard, takes off so rapidly that within
months he has moved to California, set up in business and thrown in his
studies. A simple idea – take the paper ‘face books’ which introduce
American students to each other and put them online – proved immensely
potent. By late 2004, just ten months after it was founded, The facebook
had its millionth user. The following year it moved beyond campuses into
high schools, then into the workplace, and rapidly out into the wider
world – and became simply Facebook |
| From early on, smart venture capital money was stalking Zuckerberg,
seeking a stake in a fast growing company, despite the absence of any
revenues to speak of. In most such cases, any cash will only be handed
over in return for a sizeable share of the equity, and tight control
over the leadership and direction of the business. But somehow Mark
Zuckerberg has managed to avoid that. He has been adamant that growth,
and improving the customer experience, are far more important than
revenue. |
| David Kirkpatrick has unearthed details of Zuckerberg’s negotiations
with Google and Microsoft, in which he is seen skilfully playing one
giant off against another, winning substantial investment funds without
ceding much in the way of equity or control. With all of this success
comes a vast amount of self-belief, indeed arrogance, about the way the
company conducts itself. And here is Facebook's least attractive side,
its belief that it is just a vehicle driven by its users, and has no
real responsibility when some of them get hurt. There are victims of
this success. |
| Kirkpatrick does not skirt over the various crises the company has
endured, the most notable being the outrage over an update of privacy
settings which seemed designed to encourage users to be less careful
about sharing their data with the world. But he says Zuckerberg "has a
conviction about the importance of helping people protect their most
sensitive personal data," a conclusion somewhat at odds with the
evidence that Facebook’s founder really wants us all to chill out a bit
more about sharing our lives with the world. |
| Within the next twelve months the creator of this extraordinary
phenomenon is likely to face the ultimate test for any entrepreneur, the
stock market debut of his company. If it works out Mark Zuckerberg
really will be worth billions. There is still a mountain to climb. But
after reading David Kirkpatrick’s book, I’m betting that Zuckerberg will
make it to the summit. |
Rory Cellan-Jones
BBC Technology Correspondent
A longer version of this review is available at The Enlightened
Economist,
http://blog.enlightenmenteconomics.com |
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