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“Yesterday afternoon I read Ben Mezrich’s latest book The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal. I downloaded it on my Kindle yesterday after hanging out with Howard Morgan of First Round Capital. We are both voracious readers and – after the question “what’s on your Kindle right now” – I realized I’d forgotten to grab it. I gobbled it down while recovering from my run, hanging out with Amy, chilling out after an intense week, and getting ready for my partner Jason’s birthday party.
I met Ben once over sushi in Copley Square. I had long admired him and have read all of his “non-fiction” books. It turns out that he’s friends with Niel Robertson, a good friend and entrepreneur who I’ve worked with on a number of companies, most recently Trada. Niel arranged a get together around that time that the movie 21 was about to come out. As I listened to Ben – and probed a little – I realized that this was a guy who had found his niche on the planet. Specifically, writing “almost non-fiction books” that dramatize the experiences of select young people as they make their mark on the world in wild and amazing ways.
My own experiences cross over with three of Ben’s books. As someone living deep in the tech startup world, I related to The Accidental Billionaires, knew some of the people mentioned, and was aware of most of the back story behind the tale Ben weaves. While I was never part of any of the MIT Poker teams, several friends were, including one of Amy’s old boyfriends who also was a frat brother and a good friend of mine. So – I adored Bringing Down the House and Busting Vegas: A True Story of Monumental Excess, Sex, Love, Violence, and Beating the Odds.
As I read The Accidental Billionaires, I recognized both the inside baseball stories along with the wizardry of Mezrich creating believable scenes out of his magnificent writing gift. While he’s recently been criticized for “making stuff up”, he’s very open about his approach to recreating narratives, even stating the following in the preface to the book:
“… I re-created the scenes in the book based on the information I uncovered from documents and interviews, and my best judgment as to what version most closely fits the documentary record. … In some instances, details of settings and descriptions have been changed or imagines, … I do employ the technique of recreated dialogue on the recollections of participants of the substance of conversations.”
Ben makes no apology about his style and approach. Instead, he’s working at mastering this particular genre. I think he’s gotten incredibly good at it.”
bfeld wrote this review Sunday, July 19 2009.
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