Zach Muckerberg... The Social Reckoning, ft Chris Dillon

Harvard University, late October 2003. Mark Zuckerberg is a sophomore in Kirkland House, a week away from building FaceMash, and Chris Dillon is back to stop him for a second time. Last time Chris arrived after FaceMash, when Zuckerberg already had the wind in his sails. This time he's going in earlier with a plan that has nothing to do with code: find Zuck a girlfriend, turn him into a normal person, and maybe social media never happens at all. The Game Master has other ideas. It won't even allow meeting the real Zuck and instead sets up an encounter with Zack Muckberg. The brief: Chris, travelling under a fake name, has to get his name on a signed, dated stake in whatever Muckberg builds next, before a pair of senior twins already shopping for a coder get there first. So the man who came to strangle Facebook in its crib now has to become its first investor, armed with $340 in period-correct cash, a visitor ID that survives a glance but not a phone call, no room and no friends. The real FaceMash went live from Kirkland House on 28 October 2003, a hot-or-not site built from photos pulled off Harvard's online house "facebooks". It drew around 450 visitors and 22,000 photo views in its first four hours before the university shut it down and hauled Zuckerberg in front of the Administrative Board. Within weeks he'd agreed to build HarvardConnection for the Winklevoss twins and Divya Narendra, then launched TheFacebook instead on 4 February 2004, a decision that ended in a $65m settlement and a Hollywood film. Two decades on, Facebook has more than 3bn monthly users. History needed someone to talk a 19-year-old out of it, and it got a Brit with $340 and a matchmaking plan. Era: Modern | 2003 CE | Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA Featuring: Chris Dillon Contains: Strong language. EPISODE LINKS Follow Chris's adventure on the PastMaster Interactive Map 👉 https://map.pastmasterpod.com Chris's first attempt 👉 S4E2, The Social Network Stealer: Founding Facebook First Play PastMaster yourself 👉 https://play.pastmasterpod.com GET IN TOUCH Sign up to our newsletter 👉 www.pastmasterpod.com Instagram 👉 @pastmasterpod TikTok 👉 @pastmasterpod X 👉 @pastmasterAI Email us 👉 [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices