Finally. The Definitive Story of Facebook.
He has had unprecedented access to Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg for three years. And now renowned tech writer Steven Levy delivers the definitive history of one of America’s most powerful and controversial companies: Facebook.
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About the Book
In his sophomore year of college, Mark Zuckerberg created a simple website to serve as a campus social network. The site caught on like wildfire, and soon students nationwide were on Facebook.
Today, Facebook is nearly unrecognizable from Zuckerberg’s first, modest iteration. It has grown into a tech giant, the largest social media platform and one of the most gargantuan companies in the world, with a valuation of more than $576 billion and almost 3 billion users, including those on its fully owned subsidiaries, Instagram and WhatsApp. There is no denying the power and omnipresence of Facebook in American daily life. And in light of recent controversies surrounding election-influencing “fake news” accounts, the handling of its users’ personal data, and growing discontent with the actions of its founder and CEO, never has the company been more central to the national conversation.
Based on hundreds of interviews inside and outside the company, Levy’s sweeping narrative digs deep into the whole story of the company that has changed the world and reaped the consequences.
Praise
“Steven Levy is the founding guru of technology journalism. Few other writers can harness both access to top figures and critical insight informed by decades of reporting on Silicon Valley. His Facebook book will be a blockbuster, a penetrating account of the momentous consequences of a reckless young company with the power to change the world.”—Brad Stone, author of The Everything Store and The Upstarts
“Levy is the dean of tech writers; Facebook’s brass gave him the run of the C-suite. The result is evenhanded and devastating.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“[An] exhaustive and well paced history… Levy’s account of Zuckerberg’s abbreviated Harvard tenure and Facebook’s early years feel fresh, with plenty of color that reminds you the HBO show Silicon Valley did not have to reach far for its satire”—NPR
“[T]he best tech book I’ve read in years. If you want to fully understand Facebook, or just how a modern startup works or how a modern tech behemoth functions and sees itself in the world, I cannot recommend this book more highly.”—Brian McCullough, Techmeme Ride Home
“Facebook: The Inside Story is, by my estimation, the definitive accounting of Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. It’s a tale of genius, disregard, innovation, and stunning success and betrayal. ”—Lance Ulanoff, Lifewire.
“If you want to know why Facebook is the way it is — how its leaders think, what their blind spots are, and why the company’s plans have so often gone awry — The Inside Story is an excellent starting place…I highly recommend it for anyone who wants a comprehensive, reality-based account of the company’s first 16 years”—Casey Newton, The Verge
2020 Tour Dates
Tuesday, February 25th
7:00pm
POLITICS AND PROSE BOOKSTORE AT THE WHARF
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Wednesday, February 26th
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Thursday, February 27th
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Friday, February 28th
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Saturday, February 29th
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Monday, March 2nd
7:00 pm
UNIVERSITY BOOKSTORE AT UNIVERSITY TEMPLE METHODIST CHURCH
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Tuesday, March 3rd
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THE COMMONWEALTH CLUB
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Friday, March 6th
7:30pm
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Berkeley, CA 94704
About Steven

Steven Levy is Wired’s editor at large. The Washington Post has called him “America’s premier technology journalist.” His previous positions include founder of Backchannel and chief technology writer and senior editor for Newsweek. Levy has written seven previous books and his work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Harper’s Magazine, Macworld, The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, The New Yorker, and Premiere. Levy has also won several awards during his thirty-plus years of writing about technology, including for his book Hackers, which PC Magazine named the best sci-tech book written in the last twenty years; and for Crypto, which won the grand e-book prize at the 2001 Frankfurt Book Fair.
More by Steven
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution
The Unicorn’s Secret: Murder in the Age of Aquarius
Artificial LIfe: The Quest For a New Creation
Insanely Great: The Story of Macintosh, the Computer That Changed Everything
Crypto: The New Code Wars
The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffled Commerce and Coolness
In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives
Contact
Publicist: Rebecca Odell: rodell@penguinrandomhouse.com
Agent: Phillipa Brophy, Sterling Lord Literistic, flip@sll.com
To contact Steven, please use the form below.