The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal by Ben Mezrich

Ben Mezrich tracks Mark Zuckerberg's rise from geeky Harvard underclassman in 2003 to “the youngest­ billionaire of all time.”  

(Doubleday, 260 pages, $25)

It’s fun to imagine what Mark Zuckerberg’s life has been like since the 25-year-old founded Facebook, says author Ben Mezrich. Now “the youngest­ billionaire of all time,” Zuckerberg was a Harvard sophomore of little distinction in 2003. But one night, stung by a girlfriend’s rejection, the geeky underclassman hacked into the servers of various dorms and created Facemash, a site that displayed paired headshots of other students and urged visitors to vote on which in each pairing was ­“hotter.” Within a year, Zuckerberg transformed his puckish initial concept into a social-networking site that went viral. Success, Mezrich says, brought riches, charges of intellectual theft, even sex with groupies. By the summer of 2004, he was spotted leaving one party with a Victoria’s Secret model.

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