Sean Parker: A Billion Dollars Isn't Cool

Sean Parker, who was portrayed by Justin Timberlake in the Oscar-winning blockbuster, The Social Network, recently sat down for a one-on-one interview with the Financial Times, during which Parker opened up about the film's impact on his life and shared some not-so-flattering details about the writer responsible for his fictional doppelganger.

A fast-talking, colorful tech entrepreneur, Sean Parker is noted in Silicon Valley circles for co-founding the now-shuttered music-sharing service Napster, and for his position as Facebook's first president, a post from which he was ousted due to alleged party-boy antics.

The The Social Network dramatizes Facebook's meteoric rise and, according to Parker, takes certain liberties with Parker's own life, presenting him as a backstabbing borderline-sociopath with a penchant for bacchanalia and womanizing.

Defining his worklife for the FT, however, Parker revealed himself as an unconventional businessman. “Solving specific problems is what drives me. I am not interested in having a career. I never have been,” he said. “This in no way resembles a career. I think a career is something your father brings home in a briefcase every night, looking kind of tired.”

One of the film's sequences involves the Parker character telling the young Facebook co-founders, “A million dollars isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? A billion dollars.” The real-life Parker has a different take on wealth. “It’s not cool," he said of a billion dollars. "I think being a wealthy member of the establishment is the antithesis of cool." He added, "Being a countercultural revolutionary is cool. So to the extent that you’ve made a billion dollars, you’ve probably become uncool.”

Parker credited screenwriter Aaron Sorkin with crafting the fictionalized Parker that audiences watched on the silver screen. "This character is definitely not me," Parker told the FT.

Parker's personal opinion of Sorkin is far from complimentary. "My interactions with Sorkin were agonisingly weird," Parker said during the interview. "He is by far the weirdest person I have ever met."

Sean Parker revealed even more details about his reaction--and his friends' reactions--to The Social Network. You can read the entire interview at FT.com.

Comments

[shangrolah]

05:27 AM on 03/11/2011

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/07/sean-parker-interview-quotes_n_832409.html

His portrayal in the film was always one sided and didn't reflect the reality of him or his career.

[Dennis Yuen]

03:23 AM on 03/11/2011

How about a person who has made a billion dollars, AND is a counterculture revolutionary?

[shangrolah]

05:28 AM on 03/11/2011

you can't make a billion and be a revolutionary really can you?

[MiaisAwesome]

04:47 PM on 03/09/2011

Also, judging from this interview J Timberlake nailed him right on the spot as the Narcissistic, "cool", "philanthropist" oh and "entrepreneur"

[MiaisAwesome]

04:20 PM on 03/09/2011

Well, if his billions are so "not" cool why does he have them?

Also, this man was lucky to have met Aaron Sorkin. He is an amazing screenwriter and deserved his Oscar for the film.

[shangrolah]

05:29 AM on 03/11/2011

doesn't seem to be giving them away either... not like Gates and others

The question should be is why should he have to have all that money for himself?

[wwoody]

09:43 AM on 03/09/2011

I need a loan.

[Abdi S]

04:59 AM on 03/09/2011

Just give me the money if it's uncool for you Mr. Parker.

[mukTech]

02:49 AM on 03/09/2011

What's cool?

[ArticulateAndClean]

12:34 AM on 03/09/2011

It's "not cool", but not so "not cool" that you want to give it up.

[Clarity3]

11:55 PM on 03/08/2011

I like this guy for some reason. I admire his intelligence and KNOWLEDGE, particularly about culture.

This is the second time in as many days I've read him referencing his father (directly or indirectly). I assume there are some father issues there. Hence the drive (overachieving ... approval-seeking ...).

Why so impatient, everyone? He's young. He doesn't have kids. Maybe some of that money will go into foundations to accrue interest for social benefit later on down the road. Perhaps he wants to take his time to think clearly about who and how he wants to help. Why does he have to give it all away now?

[Anella Harmeyer]

09:04 PM on 03/08/2011

He must be broke.

[ExcellentObservation]

09:01 PM on 03/08/2011

If he thinks having a Billion dollars isn't cool, he should try having minus $7000.... that totally isn't cool.

[shangrolah]

05:30 AM on 03/11/2011

ha. That is how much the rest of us have lately.

[SimianNation]

08:51 PM on 03/08/2011

I, for one, will stand strong with my brothers and sisters, and take one for the team. I am willing to sacrifice any of the coolness I might have gathered throughout my travels, and settle for a quaint little place outside of Barcelona overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, remaining faithful uncool for the rest of my life.

[Marzapan]

07:35 PM on 03/08/2011

Easy to say when you are a billionaire

[brux]

07:34 PM on 03/08/2011

Watching "The Social Network" you can tell that it is a completely made up story. It is a kind of "disinformational" propagandistic spin on the "Citizen Kane."

It is a pretty brilliant movie for how twisted and confusing it must be in terms of his it interfaces with reality ... if it does at all.

Parker was certainly caricatured - which is the closest Hollywood seems to be able to approach reality in any effort. I always wonder if there is some type of coherent spin that Hollywood aims for when it created these kindergarten pastiches of reality ... who is there consumers and what are they trying to supply?

Obviously any time you manipulate the image of a mover or shaker in America it is a big deal, a political statement, and Hollywood would not let it be done to them, and they would not have done it if they did not feel immune because the two people they attacked and character assassinated were young and nouveau-riche, the tech group which America already has many reasons to dislike ... but for the abuses heaped on them by the old-money-tech-master, Gates, Ellison, et all.

[rotomangler]

06:52 PM on 03/08/2011

"presenting him as a backstabbing borderline-sociopath with a penchant for bacchanalia and womanizing."

Congratulations, someone used their thesaurus today.

[novabird]

11:09 PM on 03/08/2011

I thought that was a particularly nice sentence. Obviously it was written by one of the paid editors.