Zuckerberg: Evil Entrepreneur or Cool Creative Ceo

ST. AUGUSTINE PREP SCHOOL

Zuckerberg: Evil Entrepreneur or Cool Creative CEO

Jacob Gluck

3/30/2011

Jacob Gluck

Mr. Leonardo

Hon. Comp. & Lit. Period E

3/28/11

Zuckerberg: Evil Entrepreneur or Cool Creative CEO

Many have seen the movie The Social Network and have a bad taste in their mouth about Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Since the movie's release there have been many claims by everyone portrayed in the movie that small details such as style of the characters are correct, but the actual plot has many false elements. Mark Zuckerberg stated in a 60 Minutes interview that he remembers wearing every outfit that his character wore in the movie, but never broke up with his girlfriend and was never over-interested in College Clubs (60 Minutes).

Mark's feelings on money in real life are different than in the movie. The movie shows him as someone who, 50 percent of the time, will say, "I'm not doing this for money," but will screw you over a thousand times for wealth. The other 50 percent he spends trying to increase Facebook's popularity...for more money. For popularity Movie Mark will go Machiavellian and not care the slightest who he hurts, rips off, steals from, or lies to. He sees Facebook as a source of everything a college student could want in the present and future. As for poor Movie Eduardo, well Movie Mark wouldn't feel bad for him if Eduardo went to his door wearing rags and said, "You caused this."

As for the Real Zuckerberg, to me he came off as the opposite of Movie Mark. In his 60 minutes interview he came off as someone who actually cared, and tried his hardest, but not just about his business but for other people! He seemed to care for people, unlike many others who have gone corrupt with power and wealth. The only similarity I saw between Real Mark and Movie Mark was a sense of cocky sureness and sarcasm.

Among for the science of personality types, Mark Zuckerberg is the subject of a heated debate. Many believe that Mark Zuckerberg is an INTJ. (INTJforum.com) The IN means intuitive and creative, and the T means the person makes decisions based of proven facts and rarely on opinions. Everyone considers Mark INT, but many others believe there should be a P, instead of a J. The J is the Movie Mark's on time exactness, while the P is what is written about Real Mark and his spontaneous personality. (Dr. Diane Hamilton)

According to Bobbie Johnson of The Guardian, Zuckerberg is a laid-back college dropout - famous for his disheveled appearance and dress code of T-shirt and sandals. In 2002 Zuckerberg enrolled into Harvard and majored in Computer Programming. His goal was to create software for college students to keep in touch. After failing many times he came up with The Facebook, a virtual meeting place. (Bobbie Johnson)

Inspired by the most successful Harvard dropout, Bill Gates, Zuckerberg left school and moved to California. Friends and acquaintances say he remains down to earth and slightly awkward. Yet underneath the shyness, there is a confidence that has many in awe, or a cockiness that has left a bad taste in the mouths of many. Zuckerberg's confidence and success make him the center media, thought Marks still says that Facebook is a networking site, not a media site. "I sense that he doesn't get impressed by new surroundings," says Jeff Jarvis, the blogger and Guardian columnist, who has met Zuckerberg several times. "Some people think it's hubristic, but I think it's just him being himself." (Bobbie Johnson)

As for the future, nobody is sure. There are rumors of Facebook buying MySpace, but these go against everything Mark seems to believe in. Some believe MySpace will buy out Facebook, but with the attention Facebook is stealing from MySpace, that seems the least likely rumor. Also, Zuckerberg won't sell Facebook. Though Zuckerberg seems to treat Facebook like his child, and won't put a price on it and won't sell it unless he has a way to buy it back.

The youngster's belief in the future of his company is critical, according to Peter Thiel, a co-founder of online payments service PayPal, who was one of the venture capitalists who invested early in Facebook. "It will remain a standalone business for a while, because the gap is enormous between what Mark and the rest of the board thinks the company is worth, and what the outside world thinks."

For those who look for signs of an inflated ego fail to find much to grab hold of. Nick Denton, founder of dotcom gossip website Valleywag, calls him "the new internet prince". Denton delights in puncturing the Silicon Valley bubble whenever he can, but despite the attempts to draw out Zuckerberg's personality, there seems to be little scandal on the cards. Indeed, his only vice appears to be an addiction to open-toed Adidas sport sandals.

Jeff Jarvis, writer of Public Parts, interviewed Mark Zuckerberg and believed that Sorkin did what the internet is infamous for, making up facts. According to David Kirkpatrick, former technology editor at Fortune magazine and author of The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World, (2011),"the film is only "40% true. . . he is not snide and sarcastic in a cruel way, the way Zuckerberg is played in the movie." He says that "a lot of the factual incidents are accurate, but many are distorted and the overall impression is false," and concludes that primarily "his motivations were to try and come up with a new way to share information on the internet. Karel Baloun, a former senior engineer at Facebook, notes that the "image of Zuckerberg as a socially inept nerd is overstated . . .It is fiction. . ." He likewise dismisses the film's assertion that he "would deliberately betray a friend." Zuckerberg donated an undisclosed amount to Diaspora, an open-source personal web server that implements a distributed social networking service. He called it a "cool idea." (Wikipedia)

Zuckerberg