I love the movie about the founding of Facebook, namely The Social Network. I am not sure anybody comes out of the movie particularly well, but on the other hand they are all in some way or other sympathetically treated, showing what their good points are and what their bad points are. You certainly don’t get the impression that Mark Zuckerberg had an original thought in coming up with Facebook, because the way the movie tells it, there is no doubt that he did not.

In fact, the two brothers who hired him to create a social networking site for Harvard, were paid $75 million each by Facebook to go away with their complaints and the reality is, after they instructed him to come up with a site, he spent about 40 days sending them e-mails with excuses as to why he had not got on to the work yet, before suddenly launching his own site. His own best friend, who had 30% plus of Facebook, was settled for an undisclosed amount, which one presumes is more than $75 million after he had his rights watered down.

The movie though is more than just about Facebook, it is more than just about how Facebook was set up to allow some guys to try and meet more girls, and that is really the point of the whole site, but also about Internet start-ups and all of the excitement that goes with them. What really makes it a great movie is not one’s familiarity with the site and the Internet, but a very good script and fantastic acting. I came out of the movie telling my wife that I really thought that the guy, who acted as Sean Parker, the co-founder of Napster, was exceptional, particularly in the scene when he pretends to be on coke and my wife reminded me that the actor was in fact the singer, Justin Timberlake. I really like Justin, and I don’t know any of his songs, just on the basis of the fact that he is the only pop star with his own PGA golf tournament, and he has a huge interest in golf, but he clearly is an exceptional actor and I would be very disappointed if this movie does not garnish a few awards because it truly is a superb production, a great script and if you have a profile on Facebook, it might well interest you to at least know some of the background, how it was formed and have at least some perspective as to the movie.
Personally, if I was Mark Zuckerberg, and I did not want people to believe the movie, then I would not have, as he did, donated $100 million to charity on the eve of the release – because to me as an attorney, that really comes across as a guilty action.