In February 2004, Facebook was a small and unknown website, used only by Harvard students. By summer, they had expanded to other Ivy Leagues, but they were still pretty small.
Typically, VCs don’t invest in companies that are so small and have no idea how they’re going to make money. Watch Shark Tank or Dragon’s Den to see how brutal they can be on budding entrepreneurs who think they have got a million-dollar idea. For all purposes, Facebook was still an idea during the summer of 2004.
If you’ve seen the movie “The Social Network,” you know what happens next. In walks successful entrepreneur Sean Parker. He uses his clout to set up a meeting with billionaire investor Peter Thiel, who then invests in the fledgling company.
