As part of its Gamechangers series, Bloomberg is taking an in-depth look into the real story of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, starting with his childhood and tracing through the origins of Facebook, all the way up to present day. The profile will be part of a Gamechangers special called "Mark Zuckerberg Revealed."
Among the information that the series brings to light: Zuckerberg's nickname growing up ("The Prince"), why he decided not to sell, and more.
David Kirkpatrick, author of "The Facebook Effect," gives Bloomberg some insight into Zuckerberg's home life:
[Mark Zuckerberg] comes from an unbelievably supportive family in which he’s the only son and he has three sisters. So he was kind of the prince, and in fact I think his parents called him The Prince, and he was treated accordingly. So this is a guy without any problem of self-confidence.
According to Ben Mezrich, author of "The Accidental Billionaires," the book on which "The Social Network" was based, some things from the movie were true. For one, Eduardo Saverin really didn't like Sean Parker, Facebook's first president (portrayed by Justin Timberlake in the film).
"Eduardo did not think highly of Sean [Parker] from the very beginning," Mezrich dishes to Bloomberg. "He thought that Sean was a snake oil salesman, that they didn’t need Sean. That Sean talked a big game, but was living out of a duffle bag and had been kicked out of two companies."
Zuckerberg may have ousted his best friend, but he was confident in his project from the very beginning. Michael J. Wolf, former CEO of MTV Networks, talks about the time he tried to buy Facebook and failed:
Mark had taken me on a walk around Palo Alto and shown me his apartment. And afterwards we sat down for lunch and I told him we’d be willing to pay as much as a billion-and-a-half dollars to buy Facebook outright. His answer was I think it’s worth a lot more, and besides, you’ve seen my apartment, I don’t really need that kind of money, and at the same time, I may never have an idea as good as this one, so I’m not that interested in selling.
Presently, Facebook is worth far more than a billion and a half dollars, with some of the latest valuations putting it at over $100 billion.
Jeremy Smith, chief strategy officer for Second Market, which helps others gauge the valuations of private companies like Facebook, makes it clear that the social network is so valuable because it deals in lives, not in gadgets:
What makes Facebook so desirable from the perspective of advertisers is that they are able to accumulate information on their users like nobody else. And the funny thing is the people, the users don’t really view it as data. It’s themselves, it’s their information, it’s their lives that they’re putting on there, but as far as advertisers are concerned it is the Holy Grail of data.
Jose Antonio Vargas, who obtained a rare interview with Zuckerberg for The New Yorker in 2010, tells Bloomberg that the young founder is "just as visionary as Steve Jobs" and says he will be "just as influential as Bill Gates." Still, Vargas cautions, Zuckerberg is "dealing with our lives" and our identities, and therefore "we’re all gonna have to kind of keep him in check."
Even Kirkpatrick says that the most remarkable thing about Facebook may be its founder. "[T]he biggest single surprise," Kirkpatrick notes, "is the peculiar and tenacious personality of Mark Zuckerberg and the depth of his convictions, and his consistency."
The Bloomberg special will air June 21 at 9:00 PM ET on Bloomberg TV.
Check out a teaser for the special (below).
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