Digital Media Concepts/Eduardo Saverin

Eduardo Luiz Saverin is a Brazil-Born entrepreneur as well as an angel investor. An angel investor is someone who gives capital for a business start-ups, to gain convertible debt or ownership equity. He is also the Co-founder of Facebook alongside Chris Hughes, Dustin Moskovitz, and Andrew McCollum. Facebook is a social networking site that allows you to share posts and communicate with others. It was created in 2004 by the other founder, Mark Zuckerburg.  As of 2022 he has a net worth of $11.7 billion. He also owned 53 million Facebook shares in 2012.

Eduardo Saverin at the 8th annual edition of the CHINICT conference on May 25th 2012 in Beijing, China.

Early Life and Education

Saverin was born on March 19 1982, in São Paulo, Brazil to Jewish parents Roberto and Paula Saverin. He came from riches, as his father was also a businessman working in clothing, shipping, and real estate and his mother was a psychologist. The rich upbringing was also due to his grandfather, Eugenio Saverin, who is the founder of Tip Top, a chain of kidswear retail shops. Saverin has two siblings, Alexandre and Michele.

During the early years of his childhood, his family relocated to Rio de Janeiro but eventually they moved to the United States and settled in Miami, Florida in 1993. This is where Saverin completed his primary Education at Gulliver Preparatory School. He then went to attend the prestigious Ivy School Harvard University which is where he graduated magna cum laude and obtained his Bachelor's degree in Economics in 2006. He was very involved at Harvard, being a member of the Phoenix S.K. club, the president of the Harvard Investment Association, member of the Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity which focuses on developing leadership qualities within the Jewish community. He revealed his skills of business early on when he profited $300,000 from investments in the oil industry because he took advantage of Brazil's lax insider trading regulations, all just as an undergraduate student.

His junior year of college, he met sophomore student, the now billionaire, Mark Zuckerburg and they started their journey of creating facebook and had it launched 2 years before Saverin even got his degree.

Career

Facebook

Saverin is most known for his title as co-founder and ex CFO of Facebook. The two Harvard students, Saverin and Zuckerburg, wanted to create a social network due to the lack of networking for Harvard students. Due to his background and studies, Saverin took the title of business manager and chief finance executive. As the company expanded beyond their expectations they decided to move to Palo Alto because they believed they would have more opportunities in Silicon Valley. At the same time however, Saverin received an internship opportunity in New York and took it. Therefore his responsibilities while being distant from headquarters was building funds, setting up company, and making a business model. However, over time, as the company grew; conflicts began to form between the two which resulted in his shares being diluted from 34.4% to 0.03%. This caused Saverin to take legal action and eventually on May 15, 2012 Business Insider released an exclusive email from Zuckerberg stating how he cut Saverin from Facebook.

Other Jobs

Saverin has had many career accomplishments other than Facebook.In 2015, he co-founded the ‘B Capital Group’ with partner Raj Ganguly. B Capital Group is a global investment firm that partners with entrepreneurs. His other large investments include ‘Ninja Van,’ ‘Aporta,’ ‘Lyft,’ ‘Qwiki,’ and ‘Jumio’. In 2010, Saverin and Aldo Alvarez, a Mexican reporter, co-founded ‘Aporta.’ Aporta is an online portal for charity. Later in 2016, his fund closed deals that are worth more than $140 million in Asia, including the startup Ninja Van worth $30 million. Ninja Van is a Singapore third party logistics company.

Personal Life

Eduardo Saverin is married to Elaine Andriejanssen, a Chinese Indonesian. They got engaged On March 27, 2014 and got married on June 25, 2015, in the French Riviera. The two currently reside in Singapore which has been his home since 2009. Saverin has a list of hobbies other than investing including chess, in fact he was a competitive chess player from 1997 to 2001 He also enjoys reading up on meteorology.

The cast of "The Social Network," Aaron Sorkin, Jesse Eisnberg, David Fincher, Andrew Garfield, and Justin Timberlake at the 2010 New York Film Festival

The Social Network

The name Eduardo Saverin resurfaced in the media in 2010 due to the critically acclaimed film “The Social Network.” The movie stars Jesse Eisenberg playing the role of Mark Zuckerburg and Andrew Garfield playing the role of Eduardo Saverin. The movie was directed by David Fincher and it tells the story of how Facebook came to be as well as what led to the conflicts between Zuckerburg and Saverin. “The Social Network '' totaled at 172 wins and 186 nominations including 3 Oscar wins and a score of 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. However, when asked about the movie, Saverin stated that it is not an accurate film and Hollywood exaggerated it for entertainment purposes.

Downfall from Facebook

Eduardo Saverin’s fall from Facebook was long and messy. It started off with Saverin’s move to New York for his internship and the distance caused issues for Zuckerburg. The first hiccup was when Saverin ran unauthorized ads on Facebook and developed ‘Joboozle,’ which was a job board site all without Zuckerberg’s knowledge and. His internship also led to Saverin failing to provide Facebook with the required funding, causing Zuckerburg having to find other investors which led to Sean Parker’s employment at Facebook. Zuckerburg was being encouraged to drop Saverin by many employed at Facebook including investor Peter Thiel. To sever ties with Saverin, Zuckerburg formed a new company and disrupted its new shares to all but Saverin. Facebook filed a lawsuit against Saverin and Saverin filed one right back once he noticed his shares were diluted. The case was settled and Saverin kept his title of Facebook co-founder. Finally after all the legal action, Saverin signed a non-disclosure contract, however years later Saverin opened up and said that there is no bad blood between the two founders.