How much is the earth and Facebook
a social network worth?
According to the latest data, although Facebook has not yet filed for an IPO, investors are eager to snap up its shares. In the secondary market transactions, Facebook's market value is about 33.7 billion US dollars (about 262.86 billion yuan). The valuation exceeds the market value of publicly traded Internet stocks such as Ebay and Yahoo.
Li Ka-shing invested US$120 million twice to hold only 0.8% of Facebook's shares, while Microsoft, the key investor that determines Facebook's market value, invested US$240 million to only hold 1.6% of Facebook's shares.
In 2006 I was working for a top 10 company in the US and I was constantly getting Facebook invitations from colleagues. I've been refusing to join because I don't know anything about social networking. Until one day my cousin who was in college in Canada sent me an invitation and said, "You haven't used Facebook yet, are you still living on earth?"
To prove that I was still an earthling, I finally joined Facebook.
On the first day of the release of "The Social Network", I went to the theater with my friends. Based on the experience of watching more than 100 new films every year, I bought movie tickets online 4 hours in advance and entered the theater 25 minutes earlier. It turned out that the line to buy tickets at the entrance of the cinema was two blocks long, and the screening hall was full of people even on the second floor. My friend and I had to separate and sat in the last two single seats.
Facebook claims to have 500 million users, what would it feel like if these 500 million people on earth got together? Is there such a crowded feeling as a movie theater?
If you scale down and simulate Facebook, it's probably the relationship between people in this overloaded movie theater: an old couple in their late sixties sitting next to me. Remember: they could be the parents of my friend's friend's friend's friend - if on Facebook.
Elite Culture Movies
The world is ruled by fools and driven by smart people.
An example is the movie "The Social Network," a success story of an online genius told by a brilliant director, David Fincher, and a brilliant screenwriter, Aaron Sorkin. The most successful part of this film is that programming is such a trivial, and the macro-trivial process of technical work and entrepreneurship, which is difficult to state, is expressed in two hours of precise but not boring film language. The most important thing is that, except for the interspersed dramatic small details, the time and process of important events are basically in line with the facts, and the expression is extremely clear and clear.
The first half of the film is set in an American college life. Weekend nights are full of extra-long concierge vans with young girls from the dating club, with their sparkling lip gloss, false eyelashes, short skirts, and youthful glances; the boys in suits and tuxedos waiting in the club, their hair covered in hairspray, Beer bottles and Adam's apple undulating with excitement. Several social gathering scenes with dark backgrounds and loud voices have already vividly expressed the thriving hormonal atmosphere of American college campuses, the restlessness of fluttering youth, and the vitality of overdrive.
In a real social setting, the protagonist Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) is an outsider. Like most geniuses, he has extremely poor social communication skills, and he can turn girls off and turn against boys in a few minutes of conversation. Not handsome, often overwhelmed, selfish, unmannered, he's nothing but genius. Jesse Eisenberg's portrayal of the characters is just right, making one wonder if he's acting in his own right. And screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, who is good at machine gun speed dialogue lines (such as "The White House" and "Charlie Wilson's War"), got an excellent performance.
The quick dialogue just fits the characteristics of the characters, intelligent, logical, self-centered and not too concerned about the audience - typical characteristics of young people of the Y generation. And the dialogue, paired with Jesse Eisenberg's lackluster expression, is probably a perfect example of an IT genius. The only thing that suffers is the audience watching the movie. Even if I have been abroad for 10 years, my listening ability has been honed by various English accents in the movie theater.
The clothing design seems to be ordinary but also quite laborious. Mark is wearing the most common college brand GAP and AE (American Egal) pullovers among American youth, probably Levis or Tommy jeans, and carrying the most common backpack. When he was "kicked out" by a pretentious middle-class girl with exquisite makeup and fashion, he ran all the way, and it seemed that ordinary could not be ordinary.
Wait, doesn't the campus he ran to look familiar, from "Love Story" to the Harvard campus that has appeared in countless movies.
Since then, in just a few hours, Mark has designed a network that can rate the attractiveness of Harvard girls, causing the network traffic to be greatly overrun and paralyzed. He was also personally punished for stealing the school's database. Inspired by a pair of wealthy twin brothers, Mark and his friends began to design a network.
The second half of the film, dominated by the hearing room, is interspersed with Facebook's move from Harvard's boys' dorm to California to become a 2,000-person company. At this time, the dialogue in the movie still plays a crucial role. Often a dialogue in the hearing is a summary of the entire historical event. At the same time, you can also realize that although the character of Mark lacks social skills, he is definitely not lacking in correctness. The ability to understand and control the situation and a sense of humor.
Overall, this is a typical movie that analyzes American elite culture.
In the 1960s, taking 1952 as an example, Harvard's acceptance rate was 2/3, and 2 out of 3 students who applied for admission could get their wish. If your "daddy" was a Harvard graduate, then you had 90 % chance of getting into this ivy college - basically if you come from a good background, if you're not stupid or stupid, you can get in if you haven't killed anyone. At that time, the academy valued blue blood (BlueBlood's aristocratic origin).
By 2010, there were 30,489 applicants for admission and 2,201 admitted, and the acceptance rate had dropped to 7%. At this time, blue blood can only be an advantage for admission, and intelligence is the most important admission condition. As part of globalization, America's elite students must compete with the intellects from Asia, and the intellects of Jewish descent.
Mark Zuckerberg is a representative of Harvard's new elite system. He is Jewish, and although born into a family of doctors, he is at best middle-class. His collaborators, Eduardo Saverin and the Winklevoss twins, were both from the blue blood class of the old elite system.
Eduardo is a member of the Phoenix Society of Harvard's senior men's society. Students who can be accepted into this society need to have background and certain social skills and other requirements for membership. In order to hone the stamina and endurance of the members, especially the loyalty to the brothers of the community, this elite society will let its members complete some seemingly extremely difficult or even embarrassing tasks. For example, in the movie, let Eduardo carry a big cock anytime and anywhere (this seems to be true). Not to mention the Winklevoss twins, who are members of Harvard's senior private sports club and maintain a strong tradition of proving themselves through sports (Oliver is a football player in "Love Story").
The screenwriter Sorkin is half-truth here and jokes about the descendants of the blue-blooded elite. The Winklevoss twins are used to the smooth sailing, showing a kind of "too stupid and too naive" of rich children. Their innocence and domineering made the president of Harvard look down on them, and asked them to leave the office bluntly. If it wasn't for their "Daddy" queen's lawyer, they wouldn't have gotten 65 million compensation from Mark. This is of course another law in the United States, where the rich can have a say.
Eduardo, on the other hand, displayed the kind innocence of a rich kid, both in terms of his friend Mark's friendship, and his underestimation of the situation. Although his equity was diluted to the point of sympathy, you can see that Li Chaoren spent hundreds of millions to buy 0.8% of the shares. Compared with his contribution, his 0.3% shares are still the most cost-effective in the world. Invest.
The two elite systems, the old and the new, quickly merged into the future social elite at Harvard. In fact, as far as Facebook was originally conceived, it was also known for its snobbery. In the first stage, only a Harvard College email address could be registered, and by the end of 2004, it was only popular in a few top universities around the world. From Stanford in the United States to Oxford in Cambridge in the United Kingdom, these students form a small society online with huge psychological advantages.
Until today, Facebook still retains the form of social circles. You can choose a social circle of a college and a company, and your profile can be selected to be public only to this social circle.
Billionaires have a history of assholes
that have to be mentioned again, with wonderful plot designs by David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin. At the beginning of the film, the girl whom Mark loves scolds the future billionaire: "You are a bastard."
At the end of the film, a female assistant lawyer says to the billionaire in her early 20s: "Actually, you are not a billionaire. Asshole, you're just trying to be an asshole."
And the movie poster says: Without a few enemies, you won't have 500 million friends.
Any great man, his raw accumulation is not so bright and pleasant. We can also cite a few other billionaire jerk histories, such as the pirate of silicon village (1999), based on IBM and Apple, where Bill Gates is not a glorious figure , can be said to be a pirate. There is also Citizen Kane (1941) based on the American journalism magnate William Randolph Hearst in the early 20th century. Of course, there are more biographical novels that reveal the fortunes of celebrities who were at the forefront of the storm, and there are not many that have not been scolded.
In addition to bringing a social network to the people of the earth (some people cannot use it), Mark Zuckerberg has at least two contributions: According to the theory of Diamond, the winner of the latest Nobel Prize in economics, in fact, Facebook provides many people Reduced "market search friction", such as in a company's internal social circle. His story may also add several winners to the next Oscars, such as Best Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Picture, and Justin should be nominated for at least one Best Supporting Actor.
At least from this movie, the young Mark Zuckerberg is not a particularly jerk. Apart from taking his Facebook career very seriously, and he has no female relationship, he is better than many others who rely on the law of the jungle to win. For the rich, he's a lovable bastard.
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