Eduardo Saverin Doing What A Twenty Something Billionaire Should Be Doing. Nailing Chicks
Daily Mail: The ‘geek’ who is learning how to party with his Facebook billions: Eduardo Saverin was portrayed as the nerd double-crossed by his scheming room-mate… but now HE’S the one living the Hollywood lifestyle In the film The Social Network, which tells the story of the world’s most popular website, he was portrayed as square and straight-laced. Eduardo Saverin provided the early seed money which enabled his friend Mark Zuckerberg, who came up with the idea for Facebook in his bedroom at Harvard, to realise his dream of connecting the world.
On screen at least, Saverin, now 30, always wore a suit and sniffily disdained the excessive partying of his fellow students. Zuckerberg, though hardly the personification of cool himself, seemed almost groovy by comparison. But eight years on, the $100 billion (£65 billion) flotation of shares in the social networking website has highlighted the intriguing way in which the two men’s lives have shifted.
For one thing, it is Saverin – who yesterday saw his £600 investment in Facebook (later topped up with £18,000) turn into a £1.28 billion fortune – who appears to be enjoying himself the most. In fact, he is having a ball. He glides around Singapore, where he now lives, in a Bentley, alighting on one champagne-fuelled party after another. Beautiful girls fling themselves at him. Every so often, if he feels like it, he thoughtfully dabbles in business, mainly investing in internet start-ups.
In contrast, Zuckerberg works 16 hours a day and lives quietly and modestly. Celebrations at his Californian HQ after the flotation were muted and key staff were pictured yesterday looking inexplicably glum. Although Zuckerberg’s own stake is estimated to be £12 billion, going public on the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York does not come without pressure. As Brent Hoberman, the co-founder of Lastminute.com, warned yesterday, the ‘weight of the world’ will now be on his shoulders.
‘There are things Zuckerberg will hate about going public,’ he said. ‘The results, saying the same thing over and over again to investors when he would rather be driving the business . . . he will hate people who want him to focus on short-term profits as opposed to his long-term mission.’ Saverin, the son of a Brazilian industrialist, has no such concerns. But he did tell The New York Times last week that he could benefit from some good advice to help him ‘get his head around’ his fortune. He has spoken to several tremendously wealthy people ‘but every experience is unique’. He added: ‘Certainly there has been no one who was a college kid and got it this fast.’
It appears the biggest problem has been how to spend it. ‘Right now, I don’t know how to deploy the capital and the blessings,’ he said. Saverin’s relationship with Zuckerberg was closely explored in The Social Network, in which Zuckerberg is portrayed as getting so caught up in making Facebook successful that he betrays Saverin and essentially runs him out of the company. The Brazilian – who said the film was more ‘art than documentary’ and described his former friend as a ‘phenomenal guy’ – relocated to Singapore in 2009 and renounced his American citizenship.
That move was seen as a strategy to avoid paying taxes on the money from the Facebook flotation, and he has received heavy criticism for it.
But the man himself says he sees the move as an opportunity to engage in more sophisticated financial activities. He said it placed him at the nexus of China, Indonesia and India, where social networking is still in its infancy. Being in Singapore also allows him to pursue a lifestyle beyond the scrutiny of the media.
Singapore is one of the most privacy-conscious cities in the world and has no paparazzi and no tabloid press. But for the occasional picture in society magazines, his nocturnal exploits go largely unreported. Most nights find him on the town, normally at Singapore’s most exclusive club, Filter, where he keeps a £2,500-a-night VIP table and routinely spends thousands on champagne. ‘If you want to do business with Eduardo, there’s no office to contact him,’ explained one of his inner circle. ‘You have to go out and make friends with him.’
One of Saverin’s most intriguing new business partners is Rachel Kum, who represented Singapore in a Miss Universe contest and last year set up a cosmetics company called Rachel K Cosmetics. In a promotional video, she describes Saverin as her ‘friend and mentor’. Kum, 27, outraged Singaporeans when photographs of her simulating oral sex on a birthday cake surfaced on the internet after she won her beauty title. She also admitted having breast implants. Saverin appears on the promotional video for Rachel K Cosmetics, saying vaguely as he justifies his investment: ‘It really inspired me to see that she went from Miss Singapore to sort of pushing her own line. She is going with her passion.’
With no job to restrain him and unlimited resources, Saverin frequently leaves his friends exhausted and financially embarrassed if they maintain dignity by picking up part of the bill.
See Zuck, THIS is how you handle becoming an overnight multi billionaire. Just doing the damn thing over in Singapore, living the life, banging multiple chicks every night, driving around in a Bentley, not paying US taxes. If I became a billionaire, you’d be damn sure I’m going to fucking Singapore! Fuck that noise. US might be the best country in the world, but if you have billions, we’ll tax you into oblivion. Singapore is where it’s at!
This line right here sums up how you SHOULD be living in your twenties, let alone if you have billions:
When a female friend asked innocently how girls managed to secure an introduction, she was told by one of his inner circle: ‘Don’t even bother. He has so many girlfriends. He has way too many.’
Just fucking turning away chicks left and right. As much as I wanted to hate on Saverin for renouncing his US citizenship because I love this country, I just can’t.
