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The Social Network · written by Aaron Sorkin · 2010
Scene 151 of 189 · ≈ 3 min on screen · Act two
Mark Zuckerberg wants status and belonging Harvard's final clubs won't give him, so he builds a website that gives the world both — and loses his best friend and co-founder to the company he built to prove he mattered.
Mark at the campus bar: brilliant, status-obsessed, unable to read the room he's sitting in.
He wants to matter — to be let into the final clubs, to be exceptional enough that Erica's verdict is wrong — and Facemash is the first proof-of-concept.
He takes the Winklevoss pitch as a springboard, builds theFacebook in its place, and launches it into a world he can't control.
Sean Parker enters at the 66 dinner and becomes the relationship — equal parts mentor and corrupter — that carries the story's real theme about loyalty and ambition.
The dinner at 66 with Sean Parker — "a billion dollars, that's cool" — reframes the company's ambition and pulls Mark irreversibly toward Sean's orbit.
Gretchen gets Eduardo to admit under questioning that Mark was cheating on his final exam via the anonymous Facebook page.
Dustin announces the site is nearing a thousand members as Mark reveals he's already renting a summer house near Stanford and hiring paid interns, setting off a fight with Eduardo over Sean Parker's influence.
Eduardo, arriving at the CS building, hears raucous cheering coming from a classroom and heads toward it.
This scene
--where 60 or so STUDENTS are in a semi-circle, five and six deep, cheering on the contestants for the internship.
All the desks in the room have been moved to the sides and five desks with laptops set up in the middle. Next to each laptop is a shot glass filled with Jack Daniels.
DUSTIN’s holding a watch and MARK is walking slowly back and forth behind the five “interviewees” who are intensely typing at their keyboards.
EDUARDO slowly makes his way through the crowd to MARK. He can see that on the computer screens are a whole lot of numbers and letters that neither he nor we can understand.
He stands next to MARK and watches this for a moment. Every once in a while, one of the contestants will throw back their shot of Jack Daniels which will instantly get re-filled by a PRETTY ASIAN GIRL. Throughout all this the CHEERING CONTINUES.
DUSTIN
(waving EDUARDO over)
Eduardo!
EDUARDO
(pause)
Yo. Mark?
MARK
Yeah.
EDUARDO
What’s goin’ on?
MARK
They have 10 minutes to get root access
to a Python webserver, expose its SSL
encryption and then intercept all traffic
over its secure port.
EDUARDO
They’re hacking.
MARK
Yes, all behind a Pix Firewall Emulator.
But here’s the beauty.
EDUARDO
You know I didn’t understand anything you
just said, right?
MARK
I do know that.
EDUARDO
What’s the beauty?
MARK
Every 10th line of code written, they
have to drink a shot. And hacking’s
supposed to be stealth, so anytime the
server detects an intrusion, the
candidate responsible has to drink a
shot. I also have a program running that
has a pop-up window appear simultaneously
on all five computers--the last candidate
to hit the window has to drink a shot.
Plus every three minutes they all have to
drink a shot.
DUSTIN
(calling out)
Three minutes.
All five candidates drain their shot glasses and slam them down where they get re-filled by the pretty Asian girl.
EDUARDO
Can I ask--what part of the interns’ jobs
will they need to be able to do drunk?
MARK
You’re right. A more relevant test might
be seeing if they can keep a chicken
alive for a week.
(pause)
That was mean.
EDUARDO hands MARK a thick envelope--
EDUARDO
Here.
MARK
What’s this?
EDUARDO
I opened a new account and put $18,000 in
it. Will that get you through the summer?
MARK looks at EDUARDO...
Suddenly two of the candidates hands shoot up almost at the same time--
INTERN [ERIC]
Here!
INTERN [IAN]
Right here!
MARK glances over at the first screen, then the second...
MARK
Welcome to Facebook.
The place ERUPTS. The pretty ASIAN GIRL hits an mp3 player that’s been hooked up to speakers and a Dr. Dre song blares out--”California, it’s time to party...”
The two winners are hugging each other and getting wild congratulations from the crowd.
MARK looks back at EDUARDO and smiles...EDUARDO gives him a pat on the back and we
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