The Social Network

The Social Network is a thrilling tale about technology, friendship and money. Considering the excessive amount of time I spent on Facebook, the story of how it all came about was intriguing. So many ideas and functions came from seemingly random events and bits of inspiration. Reminds me of the time when we were studying Communication Histories and Theories - how good ideas came from modification of other ideas, from discussion and from interaction.

It all started with a friend's idea of comparing girl's faces to animals. Zuckerberg was really smart though, tweaking the project as it went along and his insights to human behavior, especially those of college students, were spot on. The need to have an online extension of their lives in the most interactive manner - tagging photos, dating status, "The Wall" and now it has reached a whole new level of crazy - Facebook chat and See Friendship.

All that was no match for the drama though. Ex-lovers, friends, enemies and frenemies - Mark got more than he could handle. It made for a bloody good story. At one point, Sean Parker, founder of Napster (now this was a shocker to me when it was revealed), came between Zuckerberg and Saverin but his contribution to Facebook was pivotal in growing the company. Maybe sometimes you really can't have the best of both worlds.

It got me thinking a lot about entrepreneurship and for most of us, it also got us thinking about our lives. How we spend our time learning about things that other people deem important, being in a rigid curriculum and chasing money instead of chasing dreams.

Maybe it's the other way round. Chase dreams first and the money will come.