Facebook Co-founder Discusses ‘The Social Network’ (kind of)

On CNBC’s guest blog today, Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin posted an article he titled “What I Learned from Watching ‘The Social Network.’” According to his post, his relationship with Facebook seems as strong as ever.

Eduardo Saverin provided original and ongoing funding to start “thefacebook,” only to be cut out of the company by Mark Zuckerberg around the time the network hit one million members.

The movie “The Social Network” is based on a novel by Ben Mezrich, but the information for the novel was provided through interviews with Saverin. After those interviews, Facebook re-evaluated and adjusted its relationship with Saverin, adding him once again as a co-founder on the website, according to TechCrunch.

One agreement, however, was that Saverin would stop speaking to the press. TechCrunch author Jason Kincaid made an interesting observation that Saverin probably had to run his blog post by either Facebook reps or Zuckerberg himself. That might explain the positive light the post takes on.

He rarely touches on the actual film, however, even though the post title would lead you to believe otherwise. Saverin instead uses the blog space to discuss entrepreneurship in today’s world, the importance of creativity, and what he hopes audiences will take from the film.

My issue with Saverin’s blog post is the reasoning for it. Why did he write this? I understand his desire to express his opinions on entrepreneurship, and maybe he is just using his new-found celebrity to make his voice heard.

While reading the post, I couldn’t help but feel that Saverin was simply validating the process by which they created Facebook. He offers up ultra-simple observations about how creativity and the understanding of the creation process are necessary to be successful as an entrepreneur, but don’t we know that already?

It feels like he is doing one of a few different things. He could be trying to enhance his real-life connection to Facebook, at least in the public’s eye, to validate his existence as a creator. He could be proving he isn’t phased by the film. He could be trying to spin the overall theme of the film for audiences, or he could simply be driven by his ego and his over $1 billion settlement.

I want to finish by noting the subject matter Saverin completely avoided in his blog post. He never mentioned the controversy from the film, including the blatant betrayal by Mark Zuckerberg. Even though he discusses intellectual property as an essential piece of entrepreneurship, he never mentions the theft of intellectual property by Mark Zuckerberg. He also never makes one distinction as to what happened and what didn’t.

Saverin, and CNBC, knew people would read a blog post if he wrote it. The film is out, and everyone wants to know what the characters think about it, in real life. But they decided to trick readers by titling his blog post, “What I Learned From Watching ‘The Social Network.’” Now, millions of people will be reading his theories on business and entrepreneurship instead of what they really read the article for: an actual reaction, from Saverin, about the film.

Either way, the article offers insight into Saverin’s relationship with both Facebook and his ex-best-friend-turned-enemy, Mark Zuckerberg.

You can read Eduardo Saverin’s CNBC blog by clicking here: “What I Learned From Watching ‘The Social Network'”