Early Facebook Harvard Growth

A story about being one of the first Facebook users at Harvard and witnessing its early viral growth firsthand.

"I was around user #150 on Facebook. At the end of your username would be the number of Facebook user you were. It was just the most helpful thing on the planet - you could look up people's names when you couldn't remember them.

I always joke with my husband - when he asked me out, I couldn't look up who he was yet because it was before Facebook existed. I remember thinking 'Oh I can't remember who he is, is it this guy or that guy?' My kids will never know a world where you can't look somebody up.

While I couldn't foresee it becoming a $75 billion company, you knew it was a big deal really quickly. You could tell by the amount of time people were spending on it, how quickly it was spreading when it went to other colleges, when you could look up people in those schools, when you could poke people. To Mark's credit, it was an incredibly infectious platform.

I was actually thinking of dropping out of Harvard to start LearnVest at that time. I think they called it the Facebook effect - when you can see how powerful the internet can be and you're a hardworking person with skills, you start thinking maybe I should go do something. Facebook definitely spawned an entire set of entrepreneurs."