Atlassian SF took a trip to the SF Metreon to watch The Social Network today.  In general I thought the movie was entertaining, a well put together (exaggerated? slightly false?) history of Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg.  The theme of the movie is business and friends, showing that business demands can ruin friendships.  Throughout the film I often reflected on my business with friendship experience, where a friendship of mine was ruined because of contradicting opinions about direction for a wine social network startup called Cellarspot.  Facebook is a slightly different story than Cellarspot, Facebook now being worth $33 billion or more.  However, I can absolutely relate to the struggle for equity, even in a stage when success isn’t inevitable.  It seems many founders have blind faith that success is imminent, greedily prowling for as much equity as possible.

I’ve decided when I pursue a startup I’m going to do it for the desire to change the world, not for an amount of equity, fame, or fortune.