Author:David Kirkpatrick
The Lives Less Ordinary series brings you the most exciting, adventurous and entertaining true-life writing that is out there, for men who are time-poor but want the best. Lives Less Ordinary drops you into extreme first-hand accounts of human experience, whether that's the adrenaline-pumping heights of professional sport, the brutality of the modern battlefield, the casual violence of the criminal world, the mind-blowing frontiers of science, or the excesses of rock 'n' roll, high finance and Hollywood. Lives Less Ordinary also brings you some of the finest comic voices around, on every subject from toilet etiquette to Paul Gascoigne.
Six years after it was created, over 500 million people use Facebook. But it was started as a lark in a Harvard dorm room by a couple of 19-year-olds. David Kirkpatrick brings you the definitive, first-hand inside story of how the visionary Mark Zuckerberg had the maturity, strategic smarts and luck to keep his company ahead of its rivals, as well as the self-assurance at just 20-years-old to turn down an offer of $10 million dollars for his fledgling, four-month-old website.
This digital bite has been extracted from David Kirkpatrick's fascinating book The Facebook Effect.
Constance Hays has written a lively account of how the company reached this global status-and an even more detailed account of how, in the late 1990s, it seemed to lose its way.
—— The Sunday TimesCoca-Cola no longer bestrides the world as it once did. The glory days are over-The chain of events that led to this situation is nicely chronicled-in this entertaining and well-researched book-Anyone interested in the rise and fall of great corporations - and especially the people trying to run them - will learn a lot from this book.
—— The Sunday TelegraphColourful and timely-Constance Hays has produced a wellresearched and objective account of-a business that now sells enough Coke to build a stack of crates that would almost reach Mars'
—— The Saturday TelegraphMr. Kirkpatrick provides some intriguing insights into the psyche of Mr. Zuckerberg
—— The EconomistA compelling account of the origins and prospects of the social networking giant
—— The WeekAlong the way, Zuckerberg has turned down acquisition offers of as much as $15 billion; worked with and against technology giants Google, Microsoft and Viacom; and knocked heads with privacy advocates. Those are some of the gems in the illuminating new book
—— USA TodayUnderstanding Facebook's success is crucial to understanding the modern internet, and this is the definitive account of its rise and rise. Kirkpatrick's story is an important contribution to the biography of the digital age, and one of the most startling stories of human ingenuity and appetite you'll find on any shelf
—— Tom Chatfield, Arts and Books Editor of Prospect MagazineFascinating ... exciting ... The book is packed with interviews from all the key players, including Zuckerberg and Moskovitz. Kirkpatrick's subjects open up about everything
—— Associated PressThis fast paced narrative captures the excitement of the startup world and reminds me of the early days of Wikipedia when I realized we were onto something big. A big revelation is how Mark Zuckerberg's idealism led him to focus on product improvements rather than short-term revenue gains, and how critical this was to the company's success
—— Jimmy Wales, Founder, WikipediaFacebook is becoming the dominant social networking tool, facilitating our online and offline worlds. The Facebook Effect effectively shows its rapid evolution, where it is going, and how it will increasingly affect our lives
—— Craig Newmark, Founder, CraigslistMr. Kirkpatrick doesn't coddle his subject, yet he presents Mr. Zuckerberg's point of view much more comprehensibly than we have seen it before ... The author lets you get inside Mr. Zuckerberg's head
—— Wall Street JournalMr. Kirkpatrick ... was encouraged by Mr. Zuckerberg to write this book and was granted extensive access to him and his associates ... [Kirkpatrick] gives the reader a detailed understanding ... [and] still does an animated job of evoking the collegiate atmosphere that reigned at the company
—— New York TimesA carefully reported book that should change the way you think about a very unusual enterprise ... does the best job yet of making sense of Facebook's founder, 26-year-old Mark Zuckerberg
—— ForbesKirkpatrick's amazing reporting details what happens when a hacker culture turns into a multi-billion-dollar firm. Mark Zuckerberg sought to maintain that hacker energy, and it's fascinating to hear what resulted
—— Chris Anderson, Editor of Wired and author of The Long TailEngrossing. . . . A detailed and scrupulously fair history of [Facebook]
—— Rich Jaroslovsky , Bloomberg Businessweek