Ask HN: Does anyone do business with the VC that stitched up the Facebook guy? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Does anyone do business with the VC that stitched up the Facebook guy?

14 pointsandrewstuart10 comments

"The Social Network" movie shows how the VC's put together a contract that effectively took almost all the shares away from Facebook's co-founder.

Does anyone do business with that VC now? If yes, then why? Surely that's the biggest dirty deal in the history of technology startups?

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Peter Thiel (the 'don' of the paypal mafia) was the first outside investor, to the best of my knowledge. He is still a very active and respected angel.

Diluting Eduardo Saverin was almost certainly Zuckerberg's doing (or at least he didn't object), since Zuck had (and still has) board control.

Don't feel too bad for Saverin though. He sued, got ~5% of the company, and is now a billionaire at FB's current valuation.

Eduardo Saverin made more money from being "screwed out" of Facebook than almost anyone on earth will ever make in their entire lives (About 2.3 billion). Yeah, I feel really bad for him. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduardo_Saverin

These companies do

http://www.foundersfund.com/portfolio.php

Peter Thiel is one of the biggest investors in the industry. And while I am sure the events didn't go down exactly as they did in the movie, I am sure he had no problem screwing someone out of all those shares. Unfortunately, that's business. Everyone is out for themselves.

Perhaps this is one of the biggest reasons not to take funding if you can afford it. To quote wargames, the best way to win is not to play.

> To quote wargames, the best way to win is not to play.

How is this relevant here ?

They're all like ferrets in a bag.

I think you should do a little more research into the actual events of the Saverin/Facebook story. Ben Mezrich's book, and Aaron Sorkin's writing are particularly fictionalized when it comes to this aspect of the story.

May I suggest "The Facebook Effect" by David Kirkpatrick for a slightly more legitimate history of the company.

Do the actual facts really vindicate anybody tho? It's still a terrible situation.

Totally recommend that book too.

The fully story is a bit more complicated than you can squeeze into a hollywood movie.

Well, you can say the same about the book, but you do have to start somewhere.

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