Tech Weirdos That Need Social Network-Like Biopics
When director David Fincher took on Aaron Sorkin’s script, The Social Network, they gave us a peek into the birth of Facebook and the machinations that allowed Mark Zuckerberg control of the social networking website. It was a fascinating biopic, one that garnered eight Academy Award nominations while winning three.
Facebook isn’t the only entity that was born by a tech “weirdo” or two. There are plenty of others who have made lasting impressions in the tech industry who are just as deserving as Zuckerberg of a Social Network-like film. Let’s take a look at a few of the individuals whose stories are most needed to be told.
Techies That Need Social Network-Like Biopics
Elon Musk
This one is a complete no-brainer. If there was one techie who was in need of a Social Network-like biopic it is the billionaire founder and CEO of Tesla.
Not only does Elon Musk have much to be shared about his business, failed and profitable, but his personal life might be even more interesting.
As far as his professional life is concerned, his smart moves have made him the richest man in the world. But it is his cut-throat approach to how he conducts business that would make for an intriguing film. Tesla, Space X, and his recent purchase of Twitter have all been interesting to follow.
On the personal side, Musk has been married three times. The first to Justine Wilson and the second and third times to the same woman, Talulah Riley.
If that was not enough to pull in the Social Network crowd, perhaps the fact that Musk, with all of his various wives and partners, has produced 10 children.
Sadly, Musk and his first wife lost their first child to SIDs. But shortly thereafter, they had twins via IVF followed quickly by triplets.
To bring even more interest into a possible Social Network-type film, Musk is estranged from one of his twin kids, who has changed her name to reflect her new gender identity as a trans woman. She now no longer wants to be associated with Musk or anything that he does. This could be one fascinating biopic were it given the chance.
Jeff Bezos
In 1994, Jeff Bezos left his hedge fund job at D. E. Shaw & Company to establish an online bookstore. He started this venture with his then-wife, MacKenzie Scott, and made this home based in a rented garage in Bellevue, Washington.
The name they settled on was Amazon and the rest, as they say, is history. Knowing what we do now, if that is not ripe for a Social Network-type biopic, then what is?
Bezos went from quitting his fairly lucrative job to rolling the dice and taking a chance on a dream of making a bigger impact on the world. Boy did he ever.
Bezos has bounced back and forth from being the richest man in the world to not being one. His fortune took a massive hit when he and MacKenzie divorced in 2019 after 25 years of marriage and he gave her one-quarter of his then-16% stake in Amazon to her.
True, his personal life would be interesting, but his tech side would also hold a lot of interest as well. Not only is Bezos still a large part of Amazon, but he also owns the newspaper The Washington Post and the aerospace company, Blue Origin.
Bezos was one of the first to take a space flight on his Blue Origin spaceship and it was his Blue Origin that also hosted Star Trek’s William Shatner on a venture into outer space. That definitely would be a fun reenactment to watch.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin
It’s not hard to see a Social Network-like biopic on two of the most mysterious and private of the techies, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. In 1998, these two men were student computer scientists at Stanford University when they came up with the idea of Google.
Hailing from their first iteration of Google, the research project BackRub, Google has gone on to become the most web-based search engine on the planet. Just the thought of seeing this put into motion on the big screen is an intriguing thought.
Page and Brin’s idea surrounding Google came when they took a closer look at the World Wide Web and thought maybe a search engine might be able to rank links by how often these links were seen on other pages. Their idea took a little bit of finessing but finesse it did to the tune of billions.
What really would be interesting, besides the behind-the-scenes look at how they built their idea into a massive cash cow, is how this possible biopic would tackle their personal lives.
Both Page and Brin have been notoriously private so would they be open to filling in the many blanks surrounding their lives? Or would this be a Social Network-type biopic where a few liberties would need to be taken? Whichever way they would go with it, this film would be interesting.
Jack Dorsey
If you were to have a Social Network-type biopic on Tesla founder Elon Musk, you’d surely have to have one of the likes for Twitter co-founder and former CEO, Jack Dorsey.
The two are forever linked as Musk recently purchased Twitter. A film following Dorsey and his career would have to start before he became the tech “weirdo”. In his younger days, Dorsey worked as a fashion model. By the time he reached 14, though, his interests began to move over to dispatch routing.
When Twitter came along in 2006, Dorsey was the company’s first CEO. But behind-the-scenes drama ensued, causing Dorsey to get booted from that position. This fact would be interesting to see played out on the big screen. It wouldn’t be until 2015 that Dorsey would retain his role as the company’s CEO.
Another part of Dorsey’s life that would be fascinating to see unveiled is his well-known unusual life of luxury. Controversy has followed him around as he has shown a fondness for fasting and ice baths. Dorsey is also known for his preference to date models and driving fast cars. His billionaire status has also allowed him not to go cheap on his home, living in a stunning place near San Francisco.
All-in-all, Dorsey, like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin, deserves a Social Network-type biopic. These lives hold enough fascination that, when put in the hands of a skilled writer and director, could truly find an audience.
