First, it was a really well done movie, technically. Tight script, great pace, super editing, and the directing and the performances were outstanding. Zuckerberg was portrayed as an software savant, Sean Parker a Silicon Valley opportunist. The twins, as poor little rich boys. As a movie, it was great. The story it portrayed is what I want to address.
Ideas are a dime a dozen, maybe a dime a million. As Thomas Edison said, "Great ideas are 1% inspiration (ideation), 99% perspiration." The 99% is the commercialization of that idea. With this bias, and the fact I have reviewed thousands of ideas, I never stole one. In fact, I gave many an energetic entrepreneur a new idea or a great improvement to an existing one. I gave them freely, because they had the drive, the time and the motivation to turn a good idea into a business. No grudges, no regrets, just pride in my knowing that I actually had a good idea. Hence, the movie. Zuckerberg took a small idea, and turned it into a big idea. Big ideas are few and far between. Did he work under contract to the twins? No, (according to the movie).
His buddy who put up the angel money is another story he suffered what many angels do, the shaft, is he due something, absolutely! However, his perceived usefulness to the business had become of little value, and he became the target for dilution. Unfortunately (for him), he was out maneuvered by a superior adversary. Should he have been targeted unfairly, no, but he said it, he should have had his attorneys review the documents (trust, but verify). I've seen many businesses formed with three partners, and divided 1/3, 1/3 and 1/3. Without exception, one does little then nothing, one does a few things, and one works their tails off, making the business successful. Three get rich, one gets tired, angry and friendless. Venture Capitalists know this, and know that moving forward contributors should be rewarded, and hanger-ons should be diluted. Ownership is based on what you have done for the business, and what you are doing for the business today, not what you may do for the business now or in the future. If I hear "What have you done for me lately?" one more time, I'll commit homicide, but that's the way most entrepreneurs are. To quote my daughter, "Get over it!" To quote a great philosopher, "When things get rough just over look it, you knew the job was dangerous when you took it." - George of the Jungle
Time to bring in the Venture Capitalists. This brings me to Sean Parker, the co-founder of Napster, and the Facebook opportunist. Many could have done for Facebook what he did, hell, I could have done for Facebook what he did (except the sex and drugs). However, I couldn't have instantly bonded with Zuckerberg, not being an alleged uber-programmer. Sean took his piece of Facebook when he found them money, did he violate securities laws? He probably did, if you believe the movie is the whole story.
(I've often fantasized what Parker's initial conversation was with John Hummer of Hummer Windblad when he pitched Napter. I wonder if it went something like this: Hummer: "Sean what is Napster's business Model?" Shawn: "The organized theft of copyrighted material." Hummer: "Sign me up!" Bertoch: "John what were you thinking?" That transaction almost brought down the Venture Capital industry, but that's another story. To be fair, John gave a great speech for WBI in Hawaii, brutally honest about HW's crashing dot.com portfolio. Also, he's made several investments in WBI Alumni companies in Utah, we're appreciative and hopefully he's enjoyed the ride.)
The Entrepreneur is everything. Everybody says Zuckerberg comes off as a real asshole, I disagree. I think the movie may make him look antisocial, but very lucky. It doesn't do his hard work justice. I don't know if he is as awkward as the movie portrays, but what I got from the movie is he's extraordinarily bright, in terms of IQ points. Not a bad judge of character, and a person who understands manipulation. The extraordinary growth of Facebook shows he knows how to build teams and sell his story. I bet his IQ in north of 140, he probably sleeps only 4 hours a night, and may have a photographic memory. He may even be a little ADHD. Many of the great entrepreneurs share those traits, look at Gates, Jobs, Noorda, Kozmetsky, Buffet. If an entrepreneur builds billion dollar businesses from the ground up, you can bet they had these traits. At a recent meeting that the Wayne Brown Institute and VentureCapital.org hosted, legendary Venture Capitalist, Alan Patricof said, that Mark was unique in his singularity of focus making him a great, not just a good, entrepreneur, and that Mark should be admired, not envied or viewed as an asshole. I agree.
Is there victory without exits? Facebook was born at the beginning of the second wave of eyeballs investing. The dot.com crash of 2000 was about investors looking at eyeballs, not business principles. So many dot.coms couldn't clear WBI's first screening criteria: Is it a business? Much less the second, Can you keep it? Sustainable business models are the key. Without them, WBI and VentureCapital.org aren't interested. Facebook was/is about eyeballs not revenues. The second crash came in 2008. Zuckerberg is no fool, he knows that as long as Facebook is at the epicenter of the Social Networking universe (the competitive advantage), the bigger fool theory will apply. Even if it's taking it public, and it's all of us that are the bigger fools. Amazon.com didn't breakeven until $3 billion in revenues a year, and Overstock.com has always had a loss, and both are doing just fine, thank you very much.
The end is in sight! So much for my review. Don't worry, I don't plan to make movie reviews a recurring theme on the blog. But remember, commercialization is people intensive, not process intensive. Ideation is not commercialization, and commercialization is not success, until there is an exit. We're still waiting on Facebook.
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Bradley B. Bertoch is a leader in equity backed business development, and entrepreneurship. Under his direction, companies participating in Institute programs have raised almost $2 billion in private equity and created or retained over 35,000 high tech jobs throughout the United States. Read more about http://www.venturecapital.org/about-us
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