Mark Zuckerberg: 'I'm CEO ... b****'

http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/06/technology/facebook_excerpt_early.fortune/

by bjonathan • 16 years ago

9 1 16 years ago

money.cnn.com

blackswan• 16 years ago

You have to be pretty confident about the inevitability of your success to do this to Sequoia!

One of the crew's edgiest pranks in those days was a presentation made to the blue-chip venture-capital firm Sequoia Capital, known in the Valley for a certain humorlessness. Sequoia éminence grise and consummate power player Michael Moritz had been on Plaxo's board. Parker saw him as having contributed to his downfall. "There was no way we were ever going to take money from Sequoia, given what they'd done to me," says Parker. The firm wanted to invest in Facebook, so as a joke the boys offered to pitch the partners a Zuckerberg side project called Wirehog, a peer-to-peer file-sharing program.

Zuckerberg and another partner showed up deliberately late for an 8 a.m. meeting, in their pajamas. They didn't even make a pitch for Wirehog. Zuckerberg showed a PowerPoint presentation David Letterman-style: "The Top Ten Reasons You Should Not Invest in Wirehog." It started out almost seriously. "The number 10 reason not to invest in Wirehog: we have no revenue." Number 9: "We will probably get sued by the music industry." By the final few points it was unashamedly rude. Number 3: "We showed up at your office late in our pajamas." Number 2: "Because Sean Parker is involved." And the number one reason Sequoia should not invest in Wirehog: "We're only here because [a Sequoia partner] told us to come." The partners seemed to listen respectfully, recalls Zuckerberg, who says he now regrets the incident. "I assume we really offended them and now I feel really bad about that."

Mark Zuckerberg: 'I'm CEO ... b****'

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