FT Business Book of the Year

Best business books

All the books longlisted for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award

The Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick

The Facebook Effect

Kirkpatrick won Zuckerberg’s trust early on, and was even encouraged to write the book. His access and obvious affection for Facebook does not, however, make the book a whitewash. Plenty of un­seem­ly details are revealed, and Kirkpatrick holds Zuckerberg accountable for his early gaffes. — Read the complete FT review

Synopsis

Today - six years after it was created in a Harvard dorm room - over 500 million people use Facebook regularly, in just about every country on earth. That a company this powerful and influential was started as a lark by a couple of 19-year-olds makes it a fascinating and surprising tale. That one of them, the visionary Mark Zuckerberg, had the maturity, strategic smarts and luck to keep his company ahead of its rivals anchors the tale.

With exclusive inside access to all the company’s leaders David Kirkpatrick tells of the vision, the tenacity, the refusal to compromise, and the vision Zuckerberg has to remake the internet. A brilliant and fascinating cast of characters created Facebook and Kirkpatrick has interviewed all of them. Never before have Zuckerberg and his closest colleagues told what really happened as they built their dynamo while eating fast food, staying up all night, and thumbing their noses at how things are usually done.