11 Facts You’ll Want to Know After Seeing the Facebook Movie
This week the team from 6S Marketing went to go see The Social Network movie; the new film chronicling the success and turmoil that surrounded Mark Zuckerberg’s inception of Facebook. We had a blast, and the movie was awesome!
A few of us found the screenplay so captivating that we were motivated to dig up a few more facts about Facebook and some of the characters from the movie. Below are a few of the more interesting highlights from some of the emails that bounced around our office as a result of this. A special thanks to everyone at 6S who contributed.
1. Facebook is likely worth much more than was mentioned in The Social Network movie
As of a recently announced 5-to-1 stock split earlier this month, Facebook is currently valued at US $32 billion, not the US $25 billion as is stated at the end of the movie.
2. Facebook only has 1600 employees
Facebook employs about 1600 people and serves approximately 500 million members. That’s over 300,000 members per each Facebook employee, so don’t get too offended if they don’t get around to answering your emails too quickly. To put things into perspective, Google has over 21,000 employees and Microsoft has around 89,000.
3. Mark Zuckerberg is currently the youngest billionaire alive
Mark Zuckerberg currently owns a 24% share of Facebook valued at approximately US $7.68 billion. He is 26.
4. Eduardo Saverin is also a billionaire
Although exact settlement figures were left out of the movie, the co-founder and early CFO of Facebook, Eduardo Saverin, currently owns a 5% share of Facebook valued at around US $1.3 billion. Not too shabby.
5. Sean Parker no longer actively works for Facebook
After an arrest in 2005 for alleged cocaine possession, Napster founder Sean Parker was quietly removed from business operations at Facebook. He and Zuckerberg still frequently consult with one another regarding the company, and Parker remains a major shareholder of Facebook’s privately held stock. Parker still denies all drug allegations.
6. Facemash.com is up for sale
Since being featured in The Social Network movie, Facemash.com, the domain that was the product of Zuckerberg’s break-up fueled hacking spree, has seen a rise in traffic to nearly 1000 hits per day. The domain is currently available for sale on Flippa.com with current bids at US $19,000.
7. Mark Zuckerberg RENTS his house
As shown in a recent interview with Oprah Winfrey, Mark Zuckerberg currently lives in an extremely modest home that he rents with his girlfriend in Palo Alto, California. Wow ..
8. Ninety nine takes
The opening scene of the The Social Network movie took over 99 takes to film before director David Fincher was happy with it. The crew wanted to shoot an additional version of the scene in order to reach the 100 take mark, but Fincher said no.
9. Microsoft owns a chunk of Facebook
In 2007, Microsoft purchased a 1.6% share of Facebook for US $240 million. The deal provided Microsoft with rights over certain kinds of 3rd party advertising on Facebook.
10. Several countries have banned Facebook
Facebook is currently unavailable to citizens of China, North Korea, Pakistan, Vietnam, Syria, and Iran. Together these countries have a combined population of approximately 1.7 billion people.
11. Peter Thiel was the co-founder of PayPal
Although unmentioned in the movie, Peter Thiel, the angel investor who gave US $500,000 to Facebook as startup capital, was the co-founder of PayPal.
Can you think of anymore? Don’t be shy! Share them with us in the comments section below!
The 6S Marketing team about to watch The Social Network.
Some of us by The Social Network poster.
More of us!
10 Comments
Comment by Kyle — October 7, 2010 @ 12:06 pm
I was surprised to find out after watching The Social Network that one actor played both Winklevoss twins (they used CGI animation to superimpose his face on the other actor’s body).
Another interesting fact for your list: Facebook bought Facebook.com in 2005 for $200,000 and dropped “the” from its name.
Comment by Jonathan Becker — October 7, 2010 @ 12:10 pm
Thanks Kyle, that’s awesome! Got any more? I was also surprised to hear that Facebook bought the domain facebook.com for 200K. Wow ..
Comment by Biance — October 7, 2010 @ 12:56 pm
Here’s a fact I bet you’ve never heard! “If Facebook were a country, it would be the fifth-largest country in the world…” Yeah right, I think I’ve heard that one from a million different people! Great post Jon, for once here are some facts that don’t just have to do with numbers. I gotta’ get to the theaters and see that movie before it’s out!
Comment by Kyle — October 7, 2010 @ 8:34 pm
Another thing I find interesting is Facebook’s revenue this year will be roughly $1.3 billion from its Facebook Ads. This puts the company in a similar position to Google in 2003 when growth skyrocketed and Google Adwords became a license to print money.
If I had the opportunity, I’d love to buy some of their shares at the current $32 billion valuation.
Thanks for a great post! I learn a lot about Facebook that I didn’t know.
Comment by Jonathan Becker — October 7, 2010 @ 9:07 pm
@biance Thanks for stopping by! There are lot of interesting facts about Facebook that get tossed around these days, but I agree that many of them get over-used. This was a fun opportunity for us to do some special research.
@kyle I agree that Facebook ads (especially when comparing revenue) can be compared to an early Google. And with regard to Facebook’s privately held stock, I know that certain websites have been setup for the purpose of helping people who currently own Facebook stock to actually trade it. I’m not clear on whether these sites are accessible to the general public however. Mark Zuckerberg has gone on record in saying that he eventually plans to take Facebook public, although it’s unclear when this will actually happen. Thanks again for your comments.
Comment by Rick Chung — October 9, 2010 @ 4:42 pm
The Social Network gets a “like” !
Comment by Nicu Gandila — October 19, 2010 @ 10:18 am
Fact: Facebook does not have a “live-person” Customer Service.
Can you dig another company valued in the multi-billions that can proudly serve their base without live agents?
The kid got lucky and is still a kid. Still a truck-load of pain left to eat for advertising professionals before Facebook matures.
Comment by @jadebrionpover — October 19, 2010 @ 10:19 am
Fact: I ate a whole tub of popcorn at this movie.
Comment by AJ — October 19, 2010 @ 10:29 am
Can you imagine a time when Facebook becomes boring? A study out recently said it’s already happening among the teenage set. Before wanting to invest in Facebook, chart the course of another market darling early in its life: AOL.
Comment by Adam — October 19, 2010 @ 5:51 pm
Hey Jonathan,
One correction for you: Mark Zuckerberg is not the youngest billionaire alive. Former facebook chief technology officer Dustin Moskovitz is 8 days younger than Zuckerberg and worth $1.4 Billion as listed in the most recent edition of Forbes (The 400 Richest People in America) on page 244.
Cheers
Adam
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