Essay on The History of Facebook

Facebook is now one of the most popular social media site, many people may think this was started by some big back company but it was actually started in 2004 inside of a man named Mark Zuckerbergs dorm room. It was originally just started for the people on campus and was known as “The Photo Address Book”. He eventually started to spread it to other campuses with his roommate such as New York University, Stanford, Cornell, Yale, and many more. From there it took off and still hasnt stopped. Though, there were many successes there was also a lot of controversy and lawsuits throughout the facebook come up and a lot of interesting characters. 

Mark Zuckerberg since a child was always interested in computers with his father teaching him basic programming in middle school. He then hired Mark a tutor for him to get him to excel in programming. He then went on to take a course in programming at Mercy College while he was still attending highschool. Most kids struggled to have a job and school while he was also going to college and high school. Many people say he made the idea for the infamous “Aol Instant Messenger” by creating something called “Zucknet”. This allowed computers between his house and his fathers dental office to communicate. By the time he was out of high school he was attending Harvard in 2002. He was already known as a coding prodigy when he arrived at the school. Soon after joining the school he was creating programs to help the students communicate better. After a couple failed attempts and getting his site shut down, he settled on something called Thefacebook. A few days after it was announced, some students named Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra, accused him of using their tips for his own site to compete with the site they thought he was helping them with.

During these accusations, A lawsuit was filed. It was filed in 2004 and wasnt even given a response until 2007 when it was released on a technicality.  They re-filed and eventually won. They won 1.2 million shares of Facebook and 20 million dollars equaling to around 65 million dollars. Mark stole the source code he was hired to create and used it to make his own website. They’re website and group known as ConnectU had enough evidence to win but facebook came to a settlement to buy the website. After this lawsuit they then filed another lawsuit for the stock being worth less and them getting only half as much money as they were promised. But as stocks tend to do the price of the stock fluctuated causing them to lose money. Also facebook never explicitly stated how much the stocks should be valued at in the negotiation.  If they wouldve won their new lawsuit to adjust the settlement they wouldve quadrupled the amount of money they got making it to a whopping $466 million. They lost the lawsuit and still attempted to get the money by trying to get the supreme court to hear the case but they later cancelled that and asked them to investigate if facebook suppressed evidence. 

Another issue facebook encountered in its early upbringing was with a investor and entrepreneur named Sean Parker. He was the first investor in facebook and was what really made Mark lose any second thoughts about not continuing the progress of facebook. After making such big investments a Chairman seat as president of the website was available to Parker. Very soon after that he was actually found in possession of cocaine and was pressured to resign his position. He still helped Zuckerberg in the growth of facebook which caused a little bit of controversy after his cocaine charge which was later dropped. He then came out against facebook in a way and said on an interview that facebook exploits a vulnerability in peoples heads. He said it creates a “Social-validation feedback loop”. He didnt stay working with facebook for long as he returned back to the music industry soon after he had to resign but he still helped in the development. 

Eduardo Savarin was one of the biggest factors in the creation of facebook. He started working with Mark while they were still in Harvard which makes him one of the earliest teammates of mark. They both decided to invest $1000 dollars into the site and as it got bigger they decided to invest $18000 dollars into it. Since Saverin was the Co-founder he got the roles of Chief financial officer and business manager. After years of working together a email of Zuckerbergs was released that showed his plan to cut Saverin from facebook entirely and dilute his stake in the company. Once these emails came out Zuckerberg released a statement explaining how Savarin was refusing to co-operate so he decided to sign the intellectual property to a different company and try to handle the lawsuit proposed as best he can. He did say that Savarin would get a settlement and that he deserved a settlement due to his part. He just couldnt work with him anymore due to his stubbornness. This caused one of the larger lawsuits of facebooks history because not only did Savarin sue for the stock dilution. He sued for Zuckerberg for using the shared money for the company on personal expenses over the summer. Both lawsuits were settled outside of court and he got to retain his title of Co-founder but he also went on to Co-found more companies beyond facebook including Aporta, B Capital, and Ninja Van.