[adventured]

> but what I remember is that the Winklevoss tried to exploit Zuckerberg and Saverin was slacking after the first few months, so Zuckerberg only responded in a crude but not totally unreasonable fashion.

I don't know what Saverin was actually up to in those days (reality vs the fiction of the movie), however the movie clarified that Saverin was taking the subway in New York "12 hours a day" trying to generate advertising sales for Facebook. It notes that he had taken an internship and quit the first day to direct his time in pursuit of trying to garner ad sales for Facebook. Parker insults Saverin about this in the confrontation scene at the Palo Alto house they're renting ("you're just one step away from bagging Snookies Cookies"), and then Saverin clarifies to Zuckerberg in the hallway what he's up to.

The movie makes it appear as if they decided to cut Saverin out of the company because he froze the company accounts out of spite, after Zuckerberg tells Saverin that he needs to move out to California, that he's at risk of being left behind. There's a phone call between Zuckerberg and Saverin (during which Saverin's girlfriend lights something on fire), where an upset Zuckerberg confronts Saverin about freezing the company accounts, where he rants about the risk that it posed to Facebook and its uptime.

Did Saverin actually do that, and did that play a role in why they tried to cut him out of the company? Maybe somebody else here that knows a lot more can chime in.

This story with quoted personal instant messages & emails indicates Saverin began running unauthorized ads on Facebook to promote his own thing and that there was a more elaborate decay in the relationship between the founders:

https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-movie-zuckerberg-im...