Don’t Cry for Eduardo Saverin, Expat Billionaire To Be

Remember the scene in “The Social Network” when Mark Zuckerberg’s friend and Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin is pushed out of the company and physically escorted out of the building?

Some believe Saverin got his sweet revenge when he spilled the beans as Ben Mezrich’s main source for The Accidental Billionaires. Saverin has since entered the public imagination as the friend that Mark Zuckerberg so rudely defriended. 

And yet, Saverin didn’t end up getting such a bad deal after all. He owns a 4 percent stake in Facebook which could be worth an estimated $3.84 billion after the company’s valuation. To cut his tax liabilities the Brazilian-born Saverin is giving up his U.S. citizenship to become a citizen of Singapore. Singapore does not tax capital gains. 

But who exactly is Eduardo Saverin? And what should we make of the way he was portrayed in “The Social Network” — as opposed to what happened in real life?

To answer that question, we asked one of the people that was present at the creation, Facebook’s first major investor Peter Thiel. Thiel says “The Social Network” presented the story of Facebook as “a zero sum game,” which is a bit too much of a caricature. 

Watch the video here:

Follow Daniel Honan on Twitter @Daniel Honan