Mark Zuckerberg did an extensive Q&A this weekend at Stanford University for the Startup School Conference. He discussed the massive disconnect between the true story of Faebook versus The Social Network movie. Just among one of the few key details that Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher got wrong, (which is actually quite obvious to anyone who's read up on the Facebook/Mark Zuckerberg story) is that: "I've actually been dating the same girl since before I started Facebook," he told the audience.
Zuckerberg is talking about his seven year girlfriend Priscilla Chan, whom he met at Harvard; and who actually worked at Facebook for the first years of the startup, and who's currently in med-school studying to be a family physician. Which leads to the second biggest inaccuracy of the movie: "The movie makes it seem like the whole reason I started Facebook is to get girls. Hollywood just can't wrap their heads around the fact that, someone might actually build something just because they like building things," which Zuckerberg clarifies further as the major difference between Hollywood and Silicone Valley. (See video below with the full interview after the jump).
Apparently however, there is one detail that the movie got down meticulously right: the wardrobe? "Every single shirt or fleece in that movie is a piece I actually owned." So there you have it: The highest selling movie of the past few weeks is successful, not because they actually bothered to tell the story accurately, (in fact, it seems as though they made a point of doing the opposite), but because Sorkin and Fincher only know how to do the Hollywood thing as Zuckerberg said: how to make up a story--rather than make history.
Apparently however, there is one detail that the movie got down meticulously right: the wardrobe? "Every single shirt or fleece in that movie is a piece I actually owned." So there you have it: The highest selling movie of the past few weeks is successful, not because they actually bothered to tell the story accurately, (in fact, it seems as though they made a point of doing the opposite), but because Sorkin and Fincher only know how to do the Hollywood thing as Zuckerberg said: how to make up a story--rather than make history.
