10 Key Takeaways from "The Social Network"

First, and foremost, I want to start by apologizing for not writing for such a long time. I've currently been working with a company called Weatherista, Inc. where we are currently brewing something amazing. If you care to read more about it, you can find the beta at www.weatherista.com, but I'll be sure to write a blog when the time comes.

Secondly, before I get started on my key takeaways from the movie, I wanted to write my own "review" of the film. In one word (as the marketing campaign seemed to love doing) - brilliant. I truly believe that the cinematography and story were extremely well done. The film was entertaining, yet retaining a sense of intensity that I couldn't help my heart from racing for many scenes - but maybe it's because things like Facebook and startup related talk make me very excited. In any case, though there were some historical fallacies, I thought it was well done and maintained a good balance of fact and fiction. Great job Mr. Sorkin! I thought everything from music to casting was done well, but from previous experience with movies winning the "Best Movie Award," I'm not sure if it fits the bill. For those of you that haven't seen it, I highly recommend watching it and please don't read on and get mad at me for spilling the beans. Enough of that (and my biased view). 

10 Key Takeaways from "The Social Network"

1. Stay In School: You're Not Mark Zuckerberg. To give proper credit where it's due, I've linked you to the original article written by Vivek Wadhwa from Y Combinator. Here is what I think on the subject. We've heard people say they want to jump onto the entrepreneur wagon and ride it to riches just like Zuckerberg and Gates before him, but in reality...well, it's not realistic. We see and hear all these glorified stories, but what we don't see is all the college dropouts that have failed miserably. Even though Zuck is a very talented programmer, he had perfect timing, a good team, and luck on his side. It really is luck when you consider the following: the general public was ready for a paradigm shift in online communication, Mark met Sean, who managed to get funding and introduce him to the right people, he had team members like Dustin Moskovitz, who the movie heavily downplayed. For Zuckerberg, he was really at the right place at the right time and with the right product. Not many people will have this chance.
2. The idea of motivation and inspiration driven products over money is thoroughly refreshing. If you take a look back, Mark's primary focus was never to make the money. While his co-founder Eduardo Saverin and eventual President Sean Parker made it their goal to monetize Facebook and grow its value, it seemed like it was always the primary interest to build something that would be used by people. That's why markers like 1,000,000 users are so important over selling the company for a couple mil in the beginning.
3. Crowdsourcing was important then and it is important now. The scene where Mark shows us that he is crowdsourcing his art homework on Facebook is pure genius. Companies like crowdSpring have sprouted and began leveraging the power of crowdsourcing, showing us that it is truly a revolutionary idea that could only truly be implemented with social networks like Facebook.
4. Sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet. Even though Mark and Eduardo had a strong relationship and co-founded the venture together (bringing business and engineering genius together), thefacebook would never have taken off with Eduardo. I know it's a bit mean to say, but what started as an in-dorm project could not have sprouted to be the #1 social network in the world and #2 most visited site behind Google with an early focus on ad space. Zuck was right in the beginning: giving people a "cool" experience will really play its cards in the future - just look where they are now. Ads can really ruin a page and a user experience, which is something that Eduardo did not fully understand at that point in his life. Ads were money, and that's how he measured success. But ads was NOT the way to grow Facebook at such an early age, which is something that Parker knew from the get go. So while it may have seemed awful and "traitorous" to have backstabbed Eduardo like that, it was better for Facebook in the long run (they all probably have more money than they would have gotten with the initial business model).
5. Don't waste time, be wired in. In a subsection of 37signal's book "Rework" Jason Fried states that "Interruption is the enemy of productivity" and breaks the work day down into several pieces of high productivity disrupted by meetings, phone calls, and incessant interruptions. The phrase being "wired in" infers being a part of the product/a part of the machine. We should all learn a little lesson from programmers and implement it in our daily lives. If our goal is to build something truly impressive, you must bring it to market ASAP and iterate according to the masses. The best way to do this is to work efficiently, passionately and without interruption.
6. Get it in writing and read your contracts. It's important to get agreements in writing when you are bringing someone into your project, let's say..an NDA Mr. Winklevi (though this is not really the case since the product that they were trying to produce was not directly resembling thefacebook). Also, it is just as important, if not MORE important to thoroughly read contracts that you sign - or at least have an attorney read your agreements for you. In the case of Eduardo Saverin, he wasn't so lucky and suffered a 25% share decrease, though 5% and roughly $1.3B isn't bad at all.
7. Prepare to lose some friends over a great idea. While it may seem like an amazing opportunity to work on a product you are passionate about with your very best friends, think again. Most of the times you are rarely engaged with your friends in this kind of setting...and once money becomes involved, the entire situation becomes messy. With something as game-changing and revolutionary as Facebook, there was bound to be some internal dispute. Pick your team wisely.
8. Ideas hold no value, execution counts. What you create is rightfully yours. It's the twins faults that they didn't have Mark sign an NDA, though this may not have prevented Zuck from doing what he did. In any case, the case was simply put (and settled if you ask me) by Eisenberg's most resonant line in the film: "If you were the inventors of Facebook, you'd have invented Facebook." There were services like Friendster and MySpace (oops, My_____) that existed before Facebook, but even though they had the capability and history behind them to create the Facebook concept, they didn't. Enough said.
9. Don't be afraid to rock the boat. I really enjoyed the scene when Zuck first launch www.facemash.com and subsequently crashed the Hardvard system. Just like Napster defied the system, this was more like a sign of Mark's capabilities and his capacity to do revolutionary things. Sometimes it takes breaking a simple rule (or crashing an entire school's network) to make you realize the potential of a product that would otherwise be halted by red tape.
10. Go out and build, be inspired. This was the first thing that I thought of (besides, I wish I had created Facebook, hah) when I left that theater. You may not be Zuck, but it just shows how one simple idea, executed on time and well can redefine the way people interact with each other. Who knew Facebook would be an international phenomenon that caused a paradigm-shift in business attitudes, expectations, and the way we all communicate with each other. I'm sure Mark Zuckerberg, himself, was not thinking about this when he wrote the first line of code. So focus on your product, build something with passion, and see where your hard work will take you. It takes time to build something great, as the cliche saying goes: Rome wasn't built in a day."

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