I watched the recently-released film, The Social Network, on board my flight from London to the U.S. today. While I didn't rate it as a great movie, it tells the fascinating story of the creation of Facebook, which is really taking the world by storm. It's quite apt that I was heading to Boston, where the now-world's largest social networking website was launched in 2004. By the time you read this, my dear Yael, you may wonder why I am so amazed by what is seen as an extraordinary phonomena right now.
Facebook was founded by the then 20 year-old Mark Zuckerberg with his university friendss and fellow computer science students. The website's membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was quickly expanded to other colleges in the Boston area. It rapidly added support for students at various other universities before opening to high school students, and, subsequently to anyone aged 13 and over. At the time of writing, there are 600,000 Facebook members, that's almost 10 percent of the world's population. Facebook is now worth 6 billion US dollars and Zuckerberg is the youngest billionair on the planet. Incredible for a service that didn't exist just six years ago.
The best part of this astounding story is that Zuckerberg initially hacked into the protected areas of Harvard's computer network to establish the precursor to Facebook Called Facemash, the service was quickly shut down by the university administration. and the 20 year-old undergraduate was charged with breach of security, copyright violation, and invasion of privacy, and faced expulsion. Ultimately, however, the charges were dropped.
The moral of this tale is that extraordinary innovations aren't necessarily driven by conventional behaviour. While they may be there for good reasons, rules often need to be broken for revolutionary ideas to take hold. My dear Yael, as you go through life, I would encourage you not follow rules blindly.
Grandpa Jonathan
Boston, USA
