Episode description

From the rubble of the dot com crash, an ambitious young Harvard student with a passion for hacking and love of Roman emperors, sets up an exciting new website.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook is an instant hit on college campuses.

Soon it attracts the attention of Silicon Valley’s most successful - but controversial - venture capitalist, Peter Thiel.

The company starts to scale up. But there’s one problem - how is it going to make money?

Contributors: Roger McNamee, author of Zucked: Waking up to the Facebook Catastrophe; journalist Owen Thomas; Eric Jackson, author of The Paypal Wars; Jeff Hammerbacher; Anil Dash, tech entrepreneur.

Producer: Caitlin Smith Researchers: Rachael Fulton, Elizabeth Ann Duffy and Juliet Conway Executive Producer: Peter McManus Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore Music: Jeremy Warmsley Story Consultant: Kirsty Williams Commissioning editor: Dan Clarke A BBC Scotland Production for BBC Radio 4

Archive: Bloomberg Quicktake, October 2019; C-Span, Telecommunications Bill signing, Feb 1996; Hoover Institute, Decemeber 2009; Startup Academy, March 2018; Makers, December 2012.

New episodes released on Mondays. If you’re in the UK, listen to the latest episodes of The Gatekeepers, first on BBC Sounds: bbc.in/3Ui661u