Why did saverin sue zuckerberg

Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, known to many people more as an aggrieved movie character or perceived tax dodger than as an actual person, has finally spoken out.

In an interview with a magazine in his family's native Brazil, Saverin -- a newly minted billionaire after Facebook's public stock offering -- talked about his taxes, his relationship with co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and life after "The Social Network.

Many observers believe Saverin , who, according to the Facebook origin story was slighted by Zuckerberg as the site grew, was a primary source for the book "The Accidental Billionaires," on which "Social Network" is based. Surprise: The Internet hates rich people. But the end result was "fantasy," he said. And, no, he never angrily threw a laptop at Zuckerberg as his Hollywood counterpart, Andrew Garfield, did in the film. It's a statement Fabio Altman, of magazine Veja, writes is instantly believable given Saverin's reserved nature.

More Videos The money, Mark promised, would go toward the servers needed to host a site that Mark wanted to develop. The site would be called TheFacebook. Eduardo agreed. Zuckerberg, Facebook, and Saverin declined interview requests for this story, but we can infer some of Zuckerberg's thinking from instant messages he wrote during the time.

In one IM to a friend, Zuckerberg described his new partner, Saverin, as the "head of the investment society. Zuckerberg also partnered with Saverin because Saverin gave the impression he knew something about business.

Saverin was the kind of guy who wore suits to class at Harvard, and he left people—including Zuckerberg—with the impression that he was connected to the Brazilian mafia. In another IM conversation, this one from January 8, , Mark described the arrangement this way:. Zuckerberg: Eduardo is paying for my servers. Friend: A sucker born every day. Zuckerberg: Nah, he thinks it will make money. Friend: What do you think? Zuckerberg: Well I don't know business stuff Zuckerberg: I'm content to make something cool.

So Zuckerberg appears to have approached Saverin because Saverin had money and a vision for how to make more of it. Zuckerberg, meanwhile, wanted to "make something cool.

With Saverin's money paying for the servers, TheFacebook. It was an instant sensation at Harvard. Students from other schools quickly clamored for the site's expansion, and Mark and his colleagues obliged. Two months later, on June 10, , a Harvard commencement speaker mentioned the amazing popularity of thefacebook. It was the high point in the relationship between the cofounders. Things quickly went south from there. Six months after thefacebook.

Saverin went to New York for an internship at Lehman Brothers. According to instant messages from this period, before Zuckerberg left for the West Coast, he asked Saverin to work on three things: "to set up the company, get funding, and make a business model.

At first, it was just a cultural divide. Saverin: So you guys go out a lot to partiens [sic] and such there? Zuckerberg: But in general we don't do fun things. Zuckerberg: But that's OK because the business is fun. Saverin: Lol yeah it is fun. No fun things though? Zuckerberg: Eh, enough. But then Saverin did something that really pissed Zuckerberg off: He ran unauthorized ads on Facebook. Worse, the ads were for a startup Saverin was running entirely on his own, a job boards site called Joboozle.

You developed Joboozle knowing that at some point Facebook would probably want to do something with jobs. This was pretty surprising to us, because you basically made something on the side that will end up competing with Facebook and that's pretty bad by itself. But putting ads up on Facebook to advertise it, especially for free, is just mean. What finally ruined the relationship between Saverin and Zuckerberg for good was Facebook's need for funding.

As that first summer went on and TheFacebook. Finding investors wasn't hard. Things were going so well, in fact, that Mark soon decided to commit to the company and not return to Harvard for his junior year.

Gawker has more details of the transaction at their site. If the transaction was as described by Gawker, it was a blatant violation of fiduciary duty and a blatant act of minority shareholder oppression. Do you want control? Do you want a long-term investment? Do you want to cash out? Each requires a completely different strategy.

Zuckerberg wanted control, and saw himself as engaging in "dirty tricks" to force Saverin out of the company so that Zuckerberg could gain total control.

Had Mark misled Eduardo, screwing out of the majority of his stake in the company without telling Eduardo that that was what he was planning to do? Or had Eduardo just not been paying attention when he signed his rights away?