A long flight and I finally get to see The Social Network, the recently released movie on the founding of Facebook. As an entrepreneur I find the execution of ideas into reality fascinating, hence my addiction to programmes such as Dragon’s Den and The Apprentice despite their being run through the inevitable anti-business mangle of the BBC (making anyone interested in business appear dodgy, unlikeable and/or criminal). No less so Hollywood, it seems, as The Social Network quickly descends into a near-farce of backstabbing perfidiousness and intrigue, whatever the historical reality.
Like most people, I watch movies developing either sympathy or antipathy towards the main characters, although I’m often attracted or repelled in the inverse to the director’s most obvious intentions. Yet this was a difficult one to call, as the scriptwriter’s (Aaron Sorkin’s) obvious intention of pointing out accredited founder Mark Zuckerberg’s character flaws was balanced by the lack of other characters deserving support.
The narrative focuses on Zuckerberg’s defence against two law suits aimed at recognizing the significant role played by others in the creation of Facebook. Zuckerberg is portrayed as an disagreeable misanthropist whose lack of empathy for his fellow students borders on Asperger’s Syndrome (although an online debate on the subject concludes against this notion). His misanthropy – it seems – extended to shafting a group of New England aristos (Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra) who claimed the idea as their own and Zuckerberg as originally no more than their recruited programmer. It also extended to freezing out Paul Ceglia, the original funder of Zuckerberg’s venture, and apparently the only person on campus with a favourable view of our inventor prior to his success with Facebook.
My empathy was certainly not triggered by the plight of the aristos. As Zuckerberg said (at least in the movie), their ire was triggered by the fact this was the first time in their lives that something had not gone their way. Astonished by Zuckerberg’s chutzpah – a boy they seemed to consider an unattractive, unclubbable outsider – they used daddy’s attorney to plot retribution for the “stolen” idea.
Partly, my lack of empathy for the aristos comes from my former role as Metrocube CEO, where we witnessed many start-up companies in our London incubators and developed an insight into what entrepreneurial contributions counted, and what didn’t. One contribution that counted for very little was the idea. In fact, it counted for nothing – zilch – in our view because we saw that execution was everything. And if you lacked the skills to execute your idea – as the aristos appeared to – you were vulnerable to those that had such skills, as the aristos discovered. One of the reasons we believed this at Metrocube was because it was clear that, in any given set of circumstances, several if not many people were capable of having the same idea simultaneously.
In the case of Facebook (again going by the movie), it was various houses at Harvard College that had the original online “facebook” (yes, even apparently using that name) for undergraduates. So to make the leap into a cross campus Facebook, with added functionality for further personal details, was such a small leap of imagination that it hardly even deserves the credit of being an idea (not least because MySpace was well established at the time). From what I could see, it was simply a race to market and it was the aristos’ bad luck to “employ” (there was no sign of a contract) a programmer with entrepreneurial ambition.
Or was it such bad luck? I’m just going on the movie (and some fact-checking on Wiki) but the aristos won a substantial settlement ($65m according to the movie, $20m according to Wiki), which – in my view – they can put down to their fabulous luck in choosing Zuckerberg as their programmer. Anyone else and no enterprise would have gotten off the ground, giving them no one to sue for "their" brilliant idea (and I’d wager there are others who also claim the idea). Daddy’s attorney certainly earned his fee on that one (as stated, just an opinion based purely on the movie).
Yet my empathy did extend to Zuckerberg’s “only friend” (as he called himself during his lawsuit) and the original funder of the venture – roommate Paul Ceglia. While ideas are cheap (free even), risking cash at such an early stage deserves reward. And Facebook would have remained no more than an idea without Ceglia’s $1,000 – making his “three-F” stage investment (friends, family and fools) crucial.
So what of Zuckerburg himself? The misfit, the geek, the social outcast – this is a difficult character to empathise with, not least because he doesn’t seem to seek our empathy. In the movie, at least, he seeks revenge – against his girlfriend for dumping him, against all womankind (at least on campus) for finding him unattractive, against the college establishment, against the WASP jocks that guarded entry to the elite clubs and houses at Harvard.
In terms of social skills Zuckerburg appears to follow the Millwall FC mantra of “no one likes us, but we don’t care”. At least, he seems to accept his unpopularity as a price for his genius. Arrogance is the result, as well as an entrepreneurial clumsiness that most will see as typical of the billionaire mindset although, in most cases, leads to disaster and no eventual movie portrayal. Even for Zuckerburg, it resulted in lawsuits that – in the case of Ceglia at least – could and should have been avoided with a more synergistic approach.
One obvious question for this blog is whether Zuckerburg is a High-FF (someone with a high fear of failure, as described in What’s Stopping You?)? I think not. Certainly his social awkwardness is a High-FF trait, although the key aspect of High-FF behaviour he lacks is avoidance. He jumps right in – elbowing others out of the way in the process. Convinced of his messianic mission, he remains focused on the end result and is happy to make small adjustments on the way (such as dropping “the” from the title). This makes Zuckerburg more a classic High-AM (those with high achievement motivation – the opposite to a High-FF).
Nor Ceglia, who was happy to back Zuckerburg with cash on more than one occasion prior to the website earning a dime. No, the real High-FFs in the story (at least as portrayed by the movie) were the three aristos who claimed the original idea, outsourced it to a “doer” – thus ceding control to the High-AM – and then complained bitterly that their idea had been stolen. Only their rich daddy and his attorney saved them from achieving nothing from “their idea” – like millions of High-FFs before them who have also had ideas and then failed to act.
Not all High-FFs, it seems, are deserving of empathy.
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