I would. The only thing which drives him in the movie is status and power, and he is shown as completely incapable of making a connection with another human being, even on the most basic of levels. Even the lead character in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer manages to form something of a relationship with Becky (though he does murder her ) but Zuckerberg has nothing. Even when he--presumably--gets blown in the bathroom stall, the camera refuses to show it. We never see him having any remotely positive interaction with any other person.

Are you familiar with Aspergers syndrome? Because what you are describing, and the opening scene of the film in particular, hint much more at that.

Yes I'm familiar with Asperger's. It makes me giggle because it's a very serious thing and yet it sounds like Ass-burgers. Seriously though, Asperger's is too "nice" a diagnosis for Zuckerberg-the-character (again, just want to make it clear I'm making no judgment on the real person.

Some symptoms of Anti-Social Personality Disorder (Sociopathy)

* Persistent lying or stealing
* Apparent lack of remorse or empathy for others
* Poor behavioral controls — expressions of irritability, annoyance, impatience, threats, aggression, and verbal abuse; inadequate control of anger and temper
* Recurring difficulties with the law
* Tendency to violate the boundaries and rights of others
* Aggressive behavior
* Disregard for right and wrong
* Poor or abusive relationships
* Irresponsible work behavior

See where I'm coming from?

There are all too many otherwise ordinary people in the world who have many of those qualities. I'd wager that everybody has at least a little bit of a sociopathic streak, just as everybody gets a little depressed once in a great while.

Zuckerberg (movie version and, by most accounts, real version) is not without his issues, but having issues is a long way from being full-blown clinical. Emotional difficulties, far from a sure indicator of a legitimate psychological illness, are a natural part of the great human bell curve.

I really don't see where the Zuckerberg character embodies these characteristics. He gets into trouble, once, with the Harvard administration, and then gets sued--but Bill Gates has been sued plenty of times, as has many other entrepreneurs.
I also don't see where he is a persistent liar. He certainly is careful with what he is willing to reveal in the depositions, but much of the time, he's brutally honest--his interrogation of his girlfriend in the opening scene is an example of his unwavering logic at work, and he's not lying to hide it. Also, when he states that he agrees with Eduardo about him getting far due to being a minority, it's an example of him being brutally honest in stating his opinion. But virtually everyone shades the truth like he did in the deposition scenes everyday, and are probably more dishonest than him quite often.
For social controls, I don't think his situation quite represents the description--remember that when Eduardo smashes his computer, he responds with barely blinking an eye. There's nothing that ever gets him to lose control. He's never aggressive, he never makes threats, and the one time he's in an awkward situation that he initiates (his attempt to talk to his ex girlfriend) he backs away, never having gotten as demonstrative as many people would.
Poor relationships I will give you, as the Zuckerberg character can't seem to have a normal relationship with another person. But I see this as an example of his Asperger's syndrome--he's not consciously abusive of anyone, he just is unable to factor in how others will react to his responses.
As for irresponsible work behavior, come on, the guy founded facebook! He's a guy who seems to want to work constantly--remember that when Sean Parker is spending his time with facebook groupies, Zuckerberg is coding on the couch. And, when Parker gets arrested, he tells him to go home, which is being responsible.




I'd reinterpret two and three to say 'inability too understand social norms', and say that this is textbook Asperger's. For instance, he doesn't seem to register that the Harvard administration will take offense to his statement that he should be thanked for crashing the Harvard server, because it showed the weaknesses of it. That's just because he can't perceive what is expected of him. Same with remorse or empathy--it's an inability to understand social expectations. These are textbook symptoms of Asperger's.

Textbook examples eh? Well I have Aspberger's and i'm NOTHING like Zuckerberg, nor were any of my high school classmates who also had Aspberger's, Zuckerberg sounds like he's Austistic if anything.

I wouldn't draw such a concrete separation since Asperger's is basically high functioning autism.

I personally think Andrew Garfield has a better shot in the same category. I definitely think it's a more worthy performance to nominate.

Such is the danger of putting labels on people.

But without labels how will people at conventions know each other's name?

Adjectives.

"Hey Aspergery guy--doh!"

Don't you mean "Hey Sociopath?"

You know what I really liked about this film? The characterizations of the Winklevoss brothers. In most films they'd just be portrayed as douchey Harvard elitists, but in this film they're the only ones that seem to want to do things the right way. Sure, Zuckerberg sees them as douches, but they aren't. They come off way better than Zuckerberg does.

They fit into such a neat stereotype and I appreciate the way they were turned into actual people and not just the standard Harvard douchebags.

I actually found the Winklevosses to be kind of pathetic. Zuckerberg was hardly a saint, but he was on the nose about them suing because the world wasn't working out like it was supposed to for them.

They weren't villains by any means, and they could have been. But I didn't find their conduct any more admirable than Zuckerberg's.

What was pathetic about them? Their sense of fairness? I disagree that Zuckerberg was right about why they sued him. They had a sense of justice, a sense or morality that Zukerberg didn't have. Zuckerberg, while he didn't outright steal their idea, used their idea as an inspiration for his own and strung them along so he could get a head start.

What wasn't admirable about they way they went about doing this? They went through the proper channels and tried to have it handled through Harvard. They did things the right way and tried to be decent men about it. And Zuckerberg shitted on them for that.

Humanity is in a sad state of affairs if their actions in that film are construed as pathetic. Truly baffling.

The way I saw it, they thought they were entitled to something that they clearly lacked the vision to achieve, and they proceeded to try to use their connections to get Harvard to leverage Zuckerberg into giving it to them. The Harvard Connection would never, ever have become Facebook or anything closely resembling it. Or remotely resembling it. They came off as a pair that had never had to experience losing until they came up against Zuckerberg. Honestly I was rooting against them and for Zuckerberg.

The point of the rowing scene in England was to show that the brothers could handle losing. They even have a line about how they can live with losing the race because it was fair. Nothing shown in the film depicts them unable to cope with losing, only Zuckerberg's words. How were they using connections? To get a lawyer? To appeal to the President's sense of fairness? Sorry, but that's not abusing any sort of connection.

They sued Zuckerberg because he dicked them over, plain and simple. Who knows what The Harvard Connection would have been. Like the movie says, getting there first is everything. Zuckerberg deliberately prohibited them from doing that. If you say the Harvard Connection would never have taken off, it's just as plausible to say that Facebook never happens without the Winklevoss' idea. He took their initial idea and turned it into something of his own. He did steal from them. He stole the idea for exclusivity, which was one of the main reasons Facebook took off in the first place. Maybe Zuckerberg still invents Facebook without them, but the fact is, he didn't. It's unfair. They have reason to be angry. Who wouldn't be in their situation? What else were they supposed to do other than sue the guy?

Seriously, it boggles my mind that people think Zuckerberg was in the right. The settlement they got was probably fair considering the company is valued at 25 billion, but that doesn't absolve Zuckerberg from any wrongdoing. He screwed them over and they went about trying to correct that in a completely normal, civil manner.

Ah but that was after they had lost to Zuckerberg. To me that represented them having to also come to terms that they lost out to Zuckerberg. And I don't think they handled that loss all that well either :p



The Sumner meeting is perfectly representative of them using their political connections to try to get sway through the administration--Sumners even recognizes this. There's no way an average Harvard student could get a meeting with the president.



The differences were substantial and salient. The Harvard Connection was to be a top-down site in which they would be providing material--restaurant reviews etc. to people. Facebook, on the other hand, is simply a platform. The success of Facebook is in that all of the actual content is user-generated. The Winkelrowers didn't understand this, and were never going to understand it. As for how you would know, there were somewhat similar sites elsewhere on the web by the time they met Zuckerberg. And, after they launched their own website, they were actually copying heavily from Zuckerberg.



This is where the movie fudges a little. A few universities had structures that could at least somewhat be compared to Facebook. And Myspace and Friendster already existed. Zuckerberg wasn't doing something entirely new--he just did it better.

Think of it this way: Ford didn't invite the automobile. He just did it better than anyone else. Zuckerberg didn't invent social networking. He just did it better than anyone else. And the Winkelrowers weren't anywhere close.

Check out this conversation for a counterargument to the movie: http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/31377



The Model T would've never happened were it not for Karl Benz. As Zuckerberg points out, that's fairly immaterial--he might've been inspired by the Winkelrowers' comparatively ill-formed idea, but that doesn't mean he stole their site. The differences are just too substantial, in terms of the basic concept of what it would be.


I don't discount that most people would've sued him in that situation but they only got money because Zuckerberg wanted to avoid bad press. Their Harvard connection wasn't worth anything remotely close to $60 million. I can understand why they sued from their perspective, I just think their perspective is wrong.



You seem to be more upset that Zuckerberg basically blew them off and was a bit of a jerk. I won't argue those two points--he absolutely led them along and wasn't upfront with them. But being a jerk isn't the same as stealing an idea.

Think of it another way:
There would have been no N3mbers without CSI, no Amazing Race without Survivor, etc. Does this mean the creators of CSI can sue the producers of N3mbers???

It is one thing to develop a sense of righteous indignation at having their trust taken advantage of. It is one thing to hold a grudge. Those are understandable and quite fair. You can accept these things from admirable men.

It is something else entirely to have to be told--by the president of Harvard, who doesn't see just anybody--that getting their trust taken advantage of does not entitle them to anything. It is something else entirely to resort to exploiting the capriciousness and skittishness of the legal system in order to extort their way into money that didn't belong to them.

It wasn't a sense of fairness that finally motivated them to sue. It was vengeance. Zuckerberg burned them and they wanted a piece of him. The reading of the movie that you're proposing doesn't survive beyond their decision to press charges, which occurs when they discover that Facebook has grown its way across the Atlantic. Zuckerberg's transgression against them didn't grow anymore unfair or illegal when this happened. It simply made them more spiteful.