The Accidental Billionaires

by Ben Mezrich

  Mark nodded, but Eduardo was pretty sure he didn’t entirely agree. Mark knew they should try to make enough money to offset the server costs—but he didn’t seem to care about money beyond what it took to run the site. Eduardo felt differently.

  Eduardo was starting to believe, in his heart, that they were going to get rich from this Web site. As he looked around the room, at the team of über-geeks they’d assembled—it seemed like nothing could stand in their way.

  Four hours later, Eduardo’s heart slammed in his chest as he careened forward into the bathroom stall, his Italian leather shoes skidding against the tiled linoleum floor. The tall, slender Asian girl was straddling him, her long, bare legs wrapped around his waist, her skirt riding upward, her lithe body arching, as he pressed her back against the stall. His hands roamed under her open white shirt, tracing the soft material of her red bra, his fingers lingering over her perky, round breasts, touching the silky texture of her perfect caramel skin. She gasped, her lips closing against the side of his neck, her tongue leaping out, tasting him. His entire body started to quiver, and he rocked forward, pushing her harder against the stall, feeling her writhe into him. His lips found her ear and she gasped again—

  And then another sound reverberated through the bathroom. Something slamming against the stall’s wall from the other side of the cold aluminum—then a curse, followed by laughter. A second later, the laughter stopped, replaced by soft moans, and the sound of lips against lips.

  Eduardo grinned; now he and Mark shared more than a Web site, they also shared an experience. The men’s room of a dorm building wasn’t exactly the stacks at Widener Library, but it was something.

  As Eduardo went back to the girl wrapped around his waist, bolstered by the music of his friend getting crazy in the stall next to him, a thought hit him, and he couldn’t stop smiling.

  They had groupies.

  And beyond that, he realized, he had been very wrong about something.

  A computer program could actually get you laid.

  The woman behind the reception desk was trying not to stare. She was pretending to fidget with her Rolodex, her fingers parsing through the switches of laminated paper as her bun of dark hair bobbed up and down, but every now and then Tyler could see it, that quick flick of her pale green eyes. She couldn’t help looking at them, sitting next to each other on the uncomfortable couch in the waiting area in front of her desk. Tyler didn’t blame her; she looked almost as tired as the building itself, and if he and his identical twin brother could provide a little entertainment for the poor, overworked woman, then it was their good deed for the day. Hell, if he’d have thought it would help them with the task ahead, he and Cameron would have dressed exactly the same, like when they were toddlers; though showing up to the Harvard University president’s office in striped pajamas and a beanie might have seemed a little disrespectful. Dark blazers and ties seemed more appropriate, and the outer-office receptionist didn’t seem to mind. At least, she couldn’t stop looking, no matter how hard she pretended she wasn’t. And who still used Rolodexes, anyways?

  The truth was, Tyler wasn’t going to complain about any form of attention, after the week they’d just had. He was sick and tired of being ignored. First, the senior tutor of Pforzheimer House, who had been sympathetic, but had simply passed their complaints along to the ad board’s office. Then the ad-board deans, who’d also seemed sympathetic, had read through their ten page complaint against Zuckerberg—then had decided that for whatever reason, it was beyond their jurisdiction. And Zuckerberg himself—who’d responded to their cease-and-desist letter with a bullshit letter of his own. Zuckerberg maintained that he hadn’t started work on his thefacebook.com until after their last meeting on January 15; which seemed odd, considering that he’d registered the domain name thefacebook.com on January 13. Zuckerberg had also maintained that he’d just been trying to help out fellow students—for free, out of his own generosity—and that their site was nothing like his.

  The kid’s response had gotten such a rise out of Tyler and his partners that they’d tried to contact Mark directly. They’d gone back and forth over e-mail and on the phone a bit, trying to get him to meet with them personally. At one point, he’d agreed to meet—but for some reason, only with Cameron. Then that meeting had fallen through, and all contact had ceased. Which, to Tyler, seemed like a good idea, because he didn’t think he could trust Mark anyway. He figured that if, in his opinion, Mark had been willing to lie directly to his face, why would a meeting do any good?

  So here they were, sitting next to each other on a couch that felt as old as Massachusetts Hall itself, being gawked at by a receptionist. To Tyler, everything about this place seemed ancient. Indeed, Mass Hall, built in 1720, was the oldest building in Harvard Yard, and one of the two oldest university buildings in the country. The entrance to the building was perpendicular to University Hall, where the legendary statue of John Harvard stood; the statue was constantly referred to by the school tour guides that always seemed to be shepherding groups of prospective students through the Yard as “the statue of three lies,” because the words carved into its base—JOHN HARVARD, FOUNDER, 1638 were actually false—as it wasn’t actually a statue depicting John Harvard, John Harvard didn’t actually found Harvard, and the college was really founded in 1636. Even so, the statue was often the target of pranks by students from other Ivy schools. Dartmouth kids painted the thing green when their football team was in town; Yalies tried to paint it blue, or stuff some replica of a bulldog on its lap. Every school had its own tradition, and even Harvard kids visited the statue in the middle of the night—to urinate on its feet, supposedly for good luck.

  Tyler wondered if he and his brother should have tried the urination ritual before they had headed past the statue and into the stultifying air of Mass Hall. They needed all the good luck they could muster. Simply getting an audience with the president of Harvard had been no easy feat. They’d pulled every connection they could find—family, the Porc, friends of friends. And now that they were sitting there, in the waiting room of the ultimate power on campus—it was hard to fight off a looming sense of dread.

  When the phone on the receptionist’s desk burst to life, Tyler nearly slid off the couch. The woman grabbed the receiver, nodded, then glanced in their direction.

  “The president will see you now.”

  She pointed a hand at a door to her right. Tyler took a deep breath and followed his brother toward the door. As Cameron reached for the knob, Tyler smiled at the woman, silently begging her to wish them good luck. At least she smiled back.

  The president’s office was actually smaller than Tyler had expected, but well appointed in true academic fashion. There were bookshelves lining one wall, a huge wooden desk, a bunch of antique-looking side tables, and a small sitting area atop an Oriental carpet. On the desk, Tyler noticed a Dell desktop computer. The Dell was significant, because it was the first computer to ever sit in the president’s office; Larry Summers’s predecessor, Neil Rudenstine, had hated the devices, refusing to allow any computers in his office. The fact that Summers was technologically savvy was a good sign—at the very least he’d understand the issue at hand.

  Apart from the computer, the antique side tables told Tyler everything he needed to know about the president. Next to the obligatory photos of the man’s children stood framed, signed photos of Summers with Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Next to that, a framed one-dollar bill—signed by Summers himself, a symbol of his time as treasury secretary of the United States, a position he’d filled from 1999 to 2000. A graduate of MIT, Summers had received a doctoral degree in economics at Harvard, had then become one of the youngest tenured professors in the history of the university—at age twenty-eight. After his stint in Washington, he’d returned to Harvard as the twenty-seventh president of the university. His résumé was impressive, and Tyler knew that if anyone had the power to step in and fix the situation, it was Summers.

  As they entered the off
ice, Summers was sitting in a leather chair behind his desk, a phone pressed against his ear. A few feet away sat his executive assistant—a pleasant-looking African American woman, maybe midforties, in a conservative pantsuit combination that went well with the room’s decor. She waved them both in, pointing to the chairs in front of the desk.

  Without hanging up, Summers watched them until they took their seats. Then he continued talking in a low voice for another few minutes, to whoever was on the other end of the phone. Tyler pictured Bill Clinton, maybe on a plane on his way to a speaking gig. Or Al Gore in a forest somewhere, commiserating with the trees.

  Summers finally hung up the phone and looked them over. The president had a pudgy, wide face, thinning hair, and barely any chin; his eyes were like pinpoints, slicing back and forth between Tyler and Cameron.

  Slowly, Summers leaned forward, and his chubby hand crawled across his desk. His fingers found a stack of printed pages, and he lifted them up by the corner. Tyler could see, immediately, that it was the ten-page complaint that Cameron and he had typed up, detailing all of the conversations they’d had with Mark Zuckerberg, and the time line of their association, from the very first e-mail that Divya had sent to the day the Crimson had published the article on the launch of Facebook. Those ten pages represented a lot of work, and it was heartening to see they had reached all the way to the president’s desk.

  But then, Summers did something that took Tyler and Cameron completely by surprise. Without a word, he took the pages by the corner, and held them up in front of himself like they were covered in shit. He leaned back in his chair—put his feet up on his desk, and stared at the brothers with pure distaste in his eyes.

  “Why are you here?”

  Tyler coughed, his face turning red. He glanced at the African American woman, who was dutifully taking notes; she’d already written Summers’s question down across the top of a blank sheet of lined notebook paper.

  Tyler turned back to the president. The disdain in Summers’s voice was palpable. Tyler gestured toward the pages hanging from the man’s pudgy fingers. He pointed to the front page, the letter he and Cameron had sent to the president’s office, outlining their case:

  Letter to Lawrence H. Summers, President of Harvard University

  Dear President Summers:

  We (Cameron Winklevoss ’04, Divya Narendra ’04, and Tyler Winklevoss ’04) are writing to request an appointment with you. We would like to talk to you about a complaint we recently presented to the AD Board, which they declined to bring forward. Our complaint is a well documented case of a sophomore student who broke the honor code with respect to not being honest and forthright in his dealing with members of the Harvard Community.

  “The College expects that all students will be honest and forthcoming in their dealings with members of this community” (Student Handbook).

  To give you a brief synopsis, earlier this academic year the three of us approached this student (as we had done with former students) to work on our website project. He agreed to work on our site and this began our three month working relationship with him. Over those three months, in breach of our agreement, and to our material detriment in reliance upon his misrepresentations, this student stalled the development of our website, while he began developing his own website (thefacebook.com) in unfair competition with ours, and without our knowledge or agreement.

  We are being led to believe this issue falls outside of the realm of academics and the like; however, we believe this student’s actions are in direct violation of the Resolution on Rights and Responsibilities adopted by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on April 14, 1970, which states the following:

  “By accepting membership in the University, an individual joins a community ideally characterized by free expression, free inquiry, intellectual honest, respect for the dignity of others, and openness to constructive change.”

  As the leader of our University, we think you should be aware of incidents that abuse the honor code and threaten the standards of the community. We believe the ramifications of Harvard not addressing this issue will have long-term negative effects throughout the school community and beyond. Therefore, we are requesting a meeting to speak with you about this matter at your earliest convenience. Thank you.

  Sincerely,

  Cameron Winklevoss ’04

  Divya Narendra ’04

  Tyler Winklevoss ’04

  After he’d let a few seconds pass, so the man could at least pretend to reread their letter, Tyler cleared his throat.

  “I think it’s pretty self-explanatory. Mark stole our idea.”

  “So what do you want me to do about it?”

  Tyler stared at the man in shock. He turned, and looked at his brother. Cameron seemed just as flabbergasted, his mouth hanging open as he watched the pages sway in the president’s pincerlike grip.

  Tyler blinked, hard, letting the anger inside him push away the shock. He pointed toward the bookshelf behind the president, where he could clearly see a row of Harvard Handbooks from years past. The handbook was given out to every freshman; inside, it listed all of the rules of the university, all of the codes the administration was supposed to uphold.

  “It’s against university rules to steal from another student,” Tyler said, then added a quote from the handbook from memory: “‘The College expects that all students will be honest and forthcoming in their dealing with the members of this community. All students are required to respect private and public ownership; instances of theft, misappropriation, or unauthorized use of or damage to property or materials will result in disciplinary action, including the requirement to withdraw from the college.’ If Mark had gone into our dorm room and taken our computer, you would kick him out of school. Well, he’s done something much worse. He’s taken our idea, and our work, and the university should step in and uphold the Harvard code of ethics.”

  Summers sighed, letting the ten pages flop back onto his desk. Tyler watched as they landed next to a pile of brightly colored juggler’s balls. Rumor was, the balls had been given to the president by his predecessor, because that’s what a president did—juggled things, people, projects, problems. Tyler could tell, from the look on Summers’s face, that he and his brother were about to get juggled right out of the room.

  “I’ve read your complaint. And I’ve read Mark’s response. I don’t see this as a university issue.”

  “But there’s a code of ethics,” Cameron interrupted, forgetting, for a moment, that this was the president, seeing only a pudgy, disdainful man shitting all over the hard work they’d done. “There’s an honor code. What good is a code if it doesn’t have any teeth?”

  Summers shook his head. His jowls reverberated with the motion, like fleshy waves in a swirling epidermal storm.

  “You entered into a code of ethics with the university—not with each other. This issue is between you guys and Mark Zuckerberg.”

  Tyler felt himself sinking into his seat. He felt… betrayed. By this man, by the system, by the university itself. He had always seen himself as a member of the Harvard community, as part of an honorable, ordered world. Now the titular head of that world was telling him that there was no community—that it was every geek for himself. Mark had hacked the system, but it wasn’t Summers’s problem.

  “But the university has a responsibility to uphold the honor code—”

  “The university isn’t equipped to handle a situation like this. This is a technical dispute between students.”

  “What do you propose we do about it?” Tyler asked, defeated.

  Summers shrugged. His rounded shoulders were like two trapped creatures beneath the material of his shirt. It was obvious from his silence that he really didn’t care what Tyler and Cameron did about the situation.

  “Work it out with him. Or find some other way to deal with it, as a legal issue.”

  Tyler understood what the man was implying. A face-to-face talk with Mark—which would get them nowhere, considering t
hat the kid was full well willing to lie to their faces. Or a lawsuit. Which seemed even more horrible an option.

  It was truly depressing. The president of the university was telling them that they were on their own. The administration was washing its hands of the whole thing. Thefacebook was a popular campus phenomenon. Mark was getting famous, his Web site was growing daily—and the president was basically endorsing his success.

  Maybe Summers sincerely didn’t think the Winklevoss twins had a case against the kid. Maybe he believed what Mark had written—that the sites were too different, that the Winklevosses were just angry they hadn’t been able to launch their project first. Or maybe he just didn’t care.

  Tyler rose from his chair as Summers basically waved them away.

  The only thing left, Tyler realized, was to go after Mark themselves. As he led his brother out of the president’s office, Tyler glanced back, watching as the pudgy man went back to his phone. Tyler knew he would remember this moment, because he felt very strongly that it was the true end of his innocence.

  To Tyler Winklevoss—whether wrong or right—that damn kid had stolen his idea and made it his own.

  And if Harvard had its way, Mark Zuckerberg was going to get away with it.

  What a long strange trip it’s been …

  It isn’t difficult to imagine the details of that morning sometime in March of 2004, even though the moment itself became historical only in retrospect: Sean Parker’s eyes flashed open as he came awake to that sudden and musical thought bouncing around in his brain, a frenetic little ear worm let loose through the thin membrane of his aural canal, infecting his gray matter, powering up the synapses, flicking all the red lights to green. He grinned, as he usually did in the morning, staring up at a blank white ceiling, trying to remember where he was. What a long strange trip it’s been. He rubbed the last gasps of sleep out of his eyes, then stretched his arms up above his head, feeling the cool, plush material of the heavy down pillow—and it all came back to him.