Personal Response
I think the whole point of the movie is to explain how Facebook was born, haha. And while the movie does that, I still wonder how accurate everything is to the real story. Since the screenplay was based on the lawsuit transcripts, it must be pretty accurate, which is kind of sad.
What broke me the most was Mark’s betrayal of his best friend. He played Eduardo so dirty. I thought about this for a while. I don’t think it was greed. It could have been Sean’s influence, since he clearly didn’t like Eduardo. And maybe Mark thought Eduardo didn’t deserve to be part of the company. But what I really think happened was envy.
From the beginning, we see that Mark wants to belong to the elite clubs, but he can’t. Eduardo is much cooler than him, more popular, better-looking, wealthy (I don’t think that one mattered, but still.) Facebook was never going to make Mark a cooler guy. It would make him powerful, yes, but socially he would still be the same nerd. And I think that frustration was his biggest motivation to push Eduardo out. It was all envy. Mark wanted to be Eduardo in a way, but he couldn’t, so the only power he had was to remove him from the company.
Lastly, I really wonder what happened with Erica in terms of Mark’s emotions. How affected was he by their breakup? It seems like he realizes at the end that success isn’t going to bring him love. Apparently he didn’t become a better person, but maybe he became a better partner eventually. The final scene of him refreshing Erica’s profile shows how heartbroken and lonely he really is. The movie even starts with that long breakup scene with Erica, which is clearly important. I really wonder how much it shaped him.
And just to bring a little gossip into this, in real life, what was Erica’s reaction when she saw that her loser ex-boyfriend became one of the richest men alive? Because I would pay to know.