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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
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English
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MORE AWESOME THAN MONEY

Jim Dwyer

Four Boys and Their Quest to Save the World from Facebook

The true, high-profile story of four computer nerds who tried to build a revolutionary online network based on privacy and control – the anti-Facebook. Theirs was a Silicon Valley story of David vs. Goliath—an epic attempt to take back the Internet—that ended not in a billion-dollar buy-out, but in tragedy.
Their idea was simple. Four NYU undergrads wanted to build a social network that would allow users to control their personal data, instead of surrendering it to big businesses like Facebook. They called it Diaspora. In days, they raised $200,000, and reporters, venture capitalists, and the digital community’s most legendary figures were soon monitoring their progress. Max dreamed of being a CEO. Ilya was the idealist. Dan coded like a pro, and Rafi tried to keep them all on track. But as the months passed and the money ran out, the Diaspora Four fell victim to errors, bad decisions, and their own hubris. In November 2011, Ilya committed suicide.

Diaspora has been tech news since day one, but the story reaches far beyond Silicon Valley to the now urgent issues about the future of the Internet. With the cooperation of the surviving partners, New York Times bestselling author Jim Dwyer tells a riveting story of four ambitious and naÏve young men who tried to rebottle the genie of personal privacy—and paid the ultimate price.

Jim Dwyer is a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter who writes the “About New York” column for The New York Times. He has written or co-written six books, including 102 Minutes, which spent twelve weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.
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Book

Published 2014-10-16 by Viking

Book

Published 2014-10-16 by Viking

Comments

Jim Dwyer’s More Awesome Than Money is the story of four young men who dared to go up against the (new) machine—in this case, Facebook. By turns funny, poignant, scary, heartbreaking, and hopeful, More Awesome Than Money includes everything you need to know about how your personal information is being manipulated on the Internet, and what to do about it.

Readers of this suspenseful narrative will not soon forget the mountaintop-to-valley drama they endured, the classic business and human mistakes they made, nor the nobility of what they hoped to do.

A thoroughly compelling account recommended for those interested in general technology books and business narratives. This book is a welcome addition to the literature on start-ups, particularly for its focus on notions of privacy in the digital era and how entrepreneurs are working to address these critical needs.

Jim Dwyer wrote a great essay about Diaspora and “The Big Bang of Social Networking” for yesterday’s New York Times Sunday Review to promote MORE AWESOME THAN MONEY. Read more...

…the tumultuous story of four young men…offers a useful vantage point for assessing the strengths and weakness of Silicon Valley’s culture…

Failure is all too common for startups, but this is the best-told story of failure I’ve read. I was rooting for the improbable the whole way. It perfectly captures the texture of Silicon Valley’s humanity and dreams better than any success story could.

It’s a superb work, and a great read.

This is a greatly informative book.