The Battle For Facebook

Wherever the idea for Facebook came from, it was Zuckerberg's version that went viral throughout college campuses that spring. By the time the term ended on May 28th, he had nearly 200,000 users at some 30 schools nationwide. College students, it seemed, were eager to use Zuckerberg's invention obsessively, to share their most personal details online and stalk each other virtually, diving into Facebook with unbridled enthusiasm. "Harvard was around for a few centuries before young Mark came along, with students doing what they did," says Jeff Jarvis, director of the interactive journalism program at the City University of New York. "He just helped them do it better: party, get laid, study, network."

Facebook immediately set itself apart from other social-networking sites by creating a high bar of entry — users had to have an e-mail address from its roster of elite schools. This ensured that users registered as themselves, instead of as the anonymous identities that proliferated on MySpace and Friendster. Its stripped-down design and user-friendly interface also added to its cachet. It is not superior programming that sets Facebook apart, but what Zuckerberg likes to call "elegant organization": the site's ability to organize social desires, to create a clean, virtual reflection of real-life relationships.

"It was better than its predecessors," says Jarvis. "Friendster was a game; MySpace was a tacky home page. Facebook was the best to come along."

But Zuckerberg's burgeoning success online did little to stop him from burning those closest to him in real life. After school ended, he packed a bag and took a plane to California. In his eyes, Silicon Valley was "sort of a mythical place for a startup." Taking a leave of absence from Harvard, like Bill Gates before him, Zuckerberg moved to Palo Alto in the summer of 2004. His goal was to take his extraordinarily popular Website to the next level. He and Saverin each agreed to invest another $20,000 in the operation. While Zuckerberg was in California, Saverin stayed behind in New York. That decision would prove ill-advised.

Zuckerberg, Moskovitz, two interns and a few other guys rented a house on La Jennifer Way, a quiet cul-de-sac a few miles from Palo Alto's main drag. It was a modest place in a quiet neighborhood of idyllic bungalows and dusty minivans. Not that Zuckerberg saw much of his surroundings. Asked later to describe that period, he summed up his days succinctly: "Woke up, walked from my bedroom to the living room and programmed."

Stephen Haggerty, who had just finished his freshman year at Harvard, applied for an internship with Facebook that summer. "To call Facebook a company at that point was generous," says Haggerty, now a Ph.D. student at Berkeley. Most of the time, he recalls, everyone in the house would wake up late and stay up late, programming from noon until 5 a.m. "Did we do anything besides sit in front of our computers?" Haggerty says. "Mark had a girlfriend, but after a while she wasn't around. We invited some people to our parties through Facebook."

The roommates shopped at Costco and went to Home Depot, where they bought whiteboards to map code. One day, on a spontaneous urge, they spent $100 on a zip line, which they strung from the chimney of their house to a telephone pole, allowing them to plunge into the swimming pool below. They drank beer and listened to bands like Green Day and Infected Mushroom on the computer speakers. But things never got out of hand — mainly because Zuckerberg was more intent on fostering other people's social lives than developing his own.

"We were all Harvard kids, so we weren't like party kids," says Haggerty. "Mark is a big nerd. He spent a lot of time in front of his computer." When he wasn't programming, Zuckerberg watched epics like Gladiator and quoted frequently from one of his favorite movies, The Wedding Crashers. His parents sent him his fencing foils, and he spent a day happily thrusting them at his friends, like some crazed Jedi knight, until they banned swordplay in the house.

If there was any fun in the house, it was because of Sean Parker, a co-founder of Napster. A few months earlier, Parker had been visiting his girlfriend at Stanford when he noticed that she and all her friends were using a new site called Facebook. Parker says that he sensed the potential and arranged to meet Zuckerberg and Saverin in New York at a stylish Chinese restaurant. Saverin brought his girlfriend, and the four sat for a few hours while Parker regaled them with stories of raising big money in California.

Less than a month later, Parker was at his girlfriend's house in Palo Alto, unloading a car, when he saw some young guys walking toward him and recognized Zuckerberg. The Facebook crowd, it turned out, was living only two blocks away. It seemed like destiny. Parker, who had co-founded Napster at the age of 20, was exactly the kind of hot young entrepreneur that Zuckerberg aspired to become. Parker was soon living with the Facebook team and introducing Zuckerberg to investors in Silicon Valley.

Even then, moving among the world's biggest venture capitalists, Zuckerberg asserted his identity. "Mark showed up in his pajamas to meet with Sequoia Capital," Parker recalls. "He was trying to make a statement." Part of that statement was that Zuckerberg didn't plan on surrendering his identity. He wore his signature Adidas shower shoes and T?shirts everywhere. Parker was proud of him for turning down offers to sell Facebook: "The last thing I wanted was for the company to be taken away from him."