YouSaid · the spoken record

Ben Mezrich

lines on the record: 129
first: 2019-12-13
most recent: 2019-12-13
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Well, I think he also has the element that he doesn't think he's big. That's the, you know, the power. I've never seen someone push away power so much, say, oh, it's the community and have all the power. That's what I always found fascinating is that like we all have to decide together. I'm like, well, let's all have a vote then. Right, right. Because we don't. You have one vote, one vote, one man, one vote. And it's interesting. You did get that at the beginning of he wanted the power of everything. Right. I don't think that was pushed on him by Thial or anybody else. No, no, that was him. I mean, that was.”
2019-12-13 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Mezrich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. He's a megalimaniacal, and he believes when he does something and we disagree with it, we're wrong. And he continues that path until, and you know what? He's been proven right over and over again. I mean, everyone says, I'm going to leave Facebook and more people join Facebook. So in some ways, he's been validated in his views that he's right and everybody's wrong. But this, of course, is a dangerous personality when you're running a company that's in all of our lives all the time.”
2019-12-13 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Mezrich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think, which was this incredibly aggressive person with a point of view that was so strong that overwhelmed everybody else. And it was a point of view about connecting the world where there could be no mistakes because his vision was so great.”
2019-12-13 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Mezrich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, from To who he is today changed. He's very volatile. It's a dramatic difference. Yeah, I still think he has the same mentality. But what was interesting, what I want to get to in this, people have quibbles with your thing. You got him right at the heart.”
2019-12-13 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Mezrich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, he changed dramatically. I mean, from when you first interviewed him and he's sweating through his hoodie to who he is today.”
2019-12-13 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Mezrich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Making connections. Facebook was supposed to be this village. He's a very commanding person, has always been that way. He's not like a shy geek. I wouldn't say he's shy. He's not he's changed in the way that he's able to communicate much better than he used to. And he's practiced at it. You could feel more.”
2019-12-13 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Mezrich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, absolutely true. Way too many words. The idea isn't that, right? You're exactly right. It's not that he was going to parties and now I've got Facebook and now I'm going to meet girls. It was this is the social order that works for a guy like him and Eduardo. These are geeky guys who hung out on their computer most of the time who wanted to live online. They believe the world is a better place if it's this village making connections. Right. Facebook was supposed to be this village.”
2019-12-13 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Mezrich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It isn't his motivation. But the way you just described it is exactly right out of the social network. I mean, that's exactly how he would have acted in that movie. I can see Jesse Eisenberg acting like that. So it wasn't like Eisenhower.”
2019-12-13 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Mezrich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“True. I'm going to perfect because I've been at parties with him where people have done that to him. At the beginning, right after he got in big and billion dollar investment from Microsoft, I think that was what it was, we were at a party, and oddly enough, it was a Peter Thiel's house. And I was like, oh, girls are going to come up to you. And there were 20 girls that came up to him, and he could have cared less. And he's like, why would they do that? And I'm like, well, you have a billion dollars. It's certainly not your, you know, your suave manners here that's going on. And it was interesting. I think motivation for him is very different than I think that's what he did have a problem with that a lot and talked about it a lot because it isn't his motivation but the way”
2019-12-13 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Mezrich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I like the pushback because here's my feeling about this. So he didn't actually get serious with her until the end of the sequence that takes place in the social network. Okay. In the beginning of the social network, the idea that they were getting groupies in the bathroom, that's all from Eduardo. And Eduardo was there. And there were other people who I spoke to who were also there. It wasn't like he was dating someone from the very beginning. But I understand. But my point wasn't that he was out trying to get laid with Facebook. The idea was this was a social order. He was not the Winklevoss twins, right? True. I'm going to perspective.”
2019-12-13 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Mezrich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, when the book came out, he called me the Jackie Collins of Silicon Valley. And he was not very happy with me. He definitely said that it wasn't about getting girls, that he had a girlfriend. That is true. Well, I disagree in this.”
2019-12-13 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Mezrich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was much more. Well, I write thrillers, so my goal is to tell a true story but write it in a cinematic thriller-esque way. And people have had problems with it. I mean, there's definitely controversy in the way I write nonfiction. But I felt it was a very true telling of that year. Now, Mark will disagree, but I believe Eduardo and disagreements.”
2019-12-13 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Mezrich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's a lot of money Yeah, $5 billion. I get it. I might. So that was the moment So I locked myself in. And it was a different kind of book. It wasn't exactly sort of, there's been a lot of Facebook books since then. It wasn't sort of this happened, then this happened. It was much more.”
2019-12-13 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Mezrich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But the way it had all happened was so I had written this book proposal, it leaked onto Gawker. So Gawker.com printed my whole book proposal. And that day, Facebook settled with Eduardo for what became $5 billion. And if you read the settlement agreement, it says he may never speak to Ben Meserick again because they were trying to cut off the book. So Eduardo cut off all contact with me, sent me a legal restraining order. Now it's a lot of money. Broke up with his girlfriend who was my wife's best friend and he moved to Singapore. Yeah, $5 billion. Nobody would talk to me again for $5 billion. I get it. I might. So that was the moment also Aaron Sorkin saw it and called and said he wanted to write it as his next movie. And David Fincher saw it and said he wanted to direct it as his next movie. And so it all kind of exploded overnight. And at that point, I had to write the book. So I locked myself in. And it was a different kind of”
2019-12-13 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Mezrich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's been a couple of days with Sean. He was amazing. So Sean was a major source. The Winkelvos twins were a major source. And Edwardo was a major source. And then that was where I started. Now, Mark would not talk to me. You know, I spent a year trying to talk to Mark. I would eventually they said I could send them questions and that kind of thing and they never responded. But it all hasn't pre-Cheryl Samber too. This is pre-”
2019-12-13 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Mezrich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I got to know Sean. Interesting enough, Sean's mom was a fan of my Vegas story and had told him he should talk to me. So I went out to California and these people are.”
2019-12-13 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Mezrich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“King, right? It was a Jacey time for them. They were in a very small office in Palo Alto, write on University Avenue. And there was a sort of a hot and cold running executive team. They just kept changing. And there were lots of funny things going on with some other engineers. And it was your typical startup, but it certainly wasn't leading. And MySpace certainly had most of the attention at the time. And then there was Friendster before that, obviously, and a bunch of social. There was lots, and Google had ORCID and everything else. And it wasn't entirely clear that Facebook was going to prevail until really they got the Microsoft investment.”
2019-12-13 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Mezrich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And you were very early in this too. I mean, you were talking to Mark before Mark became king, right? And so it was very early, but I saw that. It was a dicy time for them.”
2019-12-13 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Mezrich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And their first reaction was no one's going to watch a movie about Facebook. So initially, it wasn't this idea, it was just going to be this huge thing.”
2019-12-13 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Mezrich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To fit Mark Zuckerberg. So, my thesis, which has been argued with many times by Mark, was that these were kids who were not social stars, who were not good at meeting girls, who were trying to reorder the social world around the internet. And MySpace had attempted this in a way. Friend Stir had attempted it. But this was different. This was personal. This was your own profile, who you were, and meeting people, poking people at the time. And I was really turned on by that. I mean, there was this drama. And I have to say, you know, the first person I sent it, I called my mom, and I was like, this is the story. And she goes, no one's going to care about Facebook. And then I sent it to Kevin Spacey because at the time I had been doing 21 with him.”
2019-12-13 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Mezrich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, he was a kid from a rich family from Brazil, and he had been two kids in a dorm room who had come up with this story. And then I found the Winklevos twin. So basically after talking to Eduardo, I went on Facebook and I Facebook the Winklevie twins and I started meeting with them and they started handing me these incredible documents because they were in the midst of their own lawsuit. And there was this incredible drama there, not just Eduardo and Mark, two friends being torn apart, but also the Winklevoss twins who claimed that their idea had been stolen and they were the archetype 80s bad guys. Right. I mean, they were the guys in the skeleton costumes chasing the karate kid around the gym. And meanwhile, there was Zuckerberg, who was at the time this revolutionary who was attempting to change the world.”
2019-12-13 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Mezrich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, what really appealed to me was two things. One, there was this Shakespearean drama between two best friends, Edwardo and Mark. Edwardo had put up the thousand dollars, which was the greatest investment in the history of the world at the time.”
2019-12-13 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Mezrich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As co-founder You've got a lot of it. I thought this was a great story. He never really intended for me to write a book. I wrote a book proposal. It was a 14-page book. What appealed to you?”
2019-12-13 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Mezrich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You really were. That book was Yeah, I mean, the way it happened for me was out of the blue. I got an email from a senior at Harvard, and this had to be 2007 or 8. Really early. And he said, my best friend founded Facebook and no one's ever heard of him. And it wasn't Mark. So I had heard of a Mark Zuckerberg, but nobody else. And I went out for a drink in Boston at a bar called Barten, and in walked Edwardo Savarin. Edwardo had never spoken to anybody else. started the conversation by saying Mark Zuckerberg fucked me. That was the opening. And so since I was at that point a journalist, I said tell me more. And he proceeded to tell me the story of these two kids who had met an underground Jewish fraternity who couldn't meet girls. And, you know, it was all Edwardo's point of view and how market hacked and made face mash. And so the whole story that ends up the social network, Edwardo proceeded to tell me this crazy story. And I found out years later, it was this Machiavellian movie.”
2019-12-13 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Mezrich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was a terrific book So, how did you get to Mark? Because you were there early. You really were. That book was, I had started covering him maybe around that or before, but everyone was aware of Facebook, but it wasn't a big company. People don't remember when it wasn't a big company, but it really wasn't. I met him very early on in his tenure there. Yeah.”
2019-12-13 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Mezrich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So it was a terrific book. Yeah, I was a fiction writer. I was right. I wrote for the X-Files. I used to write sort of medical thrillers, but unsuccessful ones. And I was sort of wandering around looking for a story, and there was a local bar here in Boston that I used to hang out at. And there was this group of MIT kids, and they had tons of money, and it was all in $100 bills. And I couldn't figure out why they had all these hundred dollar bills because you don't see those in Boston very much. And I started going to Vegas with them. And so I fell into journalism. I didn't intend to be a nonfiction writer. And then I joined the blackjack team to write that story. And so that became my first nonfiction book and then my first bestseller. And so that shifted my career from writing sort of sci-fi thrillers to writing nonsense.”
2019-12-13 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Mezrich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, MIT. So I've written 20 books at this point, which sounds like a lot, but people really read only two of them. But I have written a lot of books. And the first successful book I wrote was called Bringing Down the House about the MIT Blackjack Team, which was made into the movie 21. So, yeah, I've always written kind of true stories, written like thrillers about young people doing crazy things. Why did you?”
2019-12-13 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Mezrich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We got Zuckerberg right for sure. So let's talk a little bit about your backgrounds. People get a sense of who you are. You've written lots of books, and one of them was here at Harvard, right? Is there MIT? Right, MIT.”
2019-12-13 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Mezrich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I've long wanted to interview you. You know, I have lots of stories around the social network and accusation of billionaires, which I love that book. You've written lots of books around various mathematical. And”
2019-12-13 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ben Mezrich · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT