Jessica Alona

I’m not the best with words, but I always speak sincerity from the heart. Integrity has always been very important to me and I think now is the perfect time to finally give myself a voice.

When Mark Zuckerberg and I were on talking terms I always gave him genuine advice to the best of my ability backed by good morals. I gave Mark some of the best advice of his life, Even though I was 19-20 years old at the time and not very educated I had a lot of experience in failure and misfortune, I’ve been through a lot at a young age which made me learn a lot of lessons earlier on in life. Despite the hardships and everything before befriending Mark Zuckerberg I remained hopeful, determined, ambitious and full of dreams.

While Mark was attending Harvard, I wasn’t in school I was working; cleaning 11-13 Commercial, Office and City buildings everyday 6 days a week sometimes 7 days a week for minimum wage. I also cleaned a Jewish Synagogue once a week and spent my spare time collaborating with Mark and teaching myself things like HTML code and etc. I was really into Tony Robbins, I read every Donald Trump book by that time… I had dreams and plans of my own at a young age to excel in business and real estate one day; so I absorbed myself in as much positivity and business knowledge that I could. In high school as an elective I took a business class because I knew that was something I was interested in and because of all that I was able to give Mark advice and help him make a lot of future plans and he took every bit of it and ran with it.

Funny fact: My high school business class teacher Mr. M introduced a book to me called Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card which became my favorite book. Years later when I befriended Mark I learned that book happened to be Mark’s favorite book too.

I’ve given many people advice over the years but Mark Zuckerberg was the only person in this world that listened to me and appreciated everything I had to say for the most part and took every bit of advice I had given him and carried out every plan we made together just as he promised me… even though I was no longer around.

It’s painful for me to reflect back on everything and open up about it because I have been left in a very vulnerable position for a lot of years with absolutely nobody on my side, even though I had a very influential role in the creation of facebook.

Some people love to ridicule me for admitting that, but it’s true. God knows the story and what happened, So does Mark.

If Mark Zuckerberg and I had never met facebook wouldn’t have been facebook… It would have been something other.

I was the one that discovered www.facebook.com and www.thefacebook.com were both unregistered domains during the fall of 2003 and brought it to Mark’s attention while Mark was working on facemash.com.
but in reality I don’t get any recognition for that or anything else… and It all started when I made the request to Mark that I wanted to remain anonymous to maintain my privacy.
that’s the honest truth… and of course there is more to the story but I don’t like to talk about it.

In the beginning Mark was very supportive and grateful for the advice, encouragement, motivation and inspiration I offered as we collaborated together on ideas and future plans.

Mark always thanked me and often told me how he’d like to help change my life. When Mark spoke of the future of facebook with me… he made sure to include me in the dream… and reassured me I was an important part of facebook… and nothing would ever change that but in 2005 I was let down and eventually alienated to the point of non existence.

Very few people knew about me and where in Canada I was from… Yes, it’s true I am Canadian not American and nobody cared to reach out to me or help me reconnect with Mark each time I attempted to reach out to him… and to this very day nobody cared how I felt about everything that had happened or how I ended up in life and If I was okay… and I wasn’t okay.

Before facebooks success…..
I said to Mark something like “One day you are going to forget about me and you will never honor your promise that you made me. Because nobody ever remembers the people that were there for them in the beginning of their success.” I said that because that is what I believed to be true. Mark replied with disbelief in what I had just said and asked me why I had thought that way and I said “I’m always forgotten by people.” and Mark reassured me that moment that he would never forget me and will honor his promise to me no matter what.

I’m intuitive and I was right… just like I was right about everything I ever told Mark.

Growing up poor and disadvantaged. I’ve always been naturally skeptical of things that seem too good to be true.
When someone promises you big promises beyond your dreams… It’s hard to put blind faith in it that is why I asked Mark for reassurance on many occasions.

From a disadvantaged point of view Once you start putting hope and trust in someone’s words and promises and you get let down… All past disappointments, Every failure, Every Hardship, Every Set Back comes back like a boomerang reminder that life just sucks.

Mark Zuckerberg and I haven’t had any real communication between us since the falling out we had, which happened during the early months of 2005.

Honestly what Mark doesn’t know is about a week after our fight I tried to e-mail him with the intention of making things right between us… but he had deactivated the e-mail address. The e-mail address he deactivated was an e-mail address he promised he would always keep active so I could always easily contact him.

When I had found out Mark deactivated that e-mail address immediately following our fight. That’s when I had experienced my first real panic attack, I thought I was literally going to die I couldn’t breathe, my heart was racing and my chest hurt, I was actually convinced in the moment that I was having a heart attack. Some people reading this might find that funny but panic/anxiety attacks are truly scary. I took it extremely hard because I realized that was really it. Our friendship and my silent partnership with facebook was truly over. I didn’t fight it. I didn’t attempt reaching Mark any other way because he had made himself clear to me by his actions that he didn’t care or value me for all the ways I have helped him. Right or wrong, That is how I interpreted his actions and it hurt a lot.

Losing Mark’s friendship changed me. I lost myself. I lost that hopefulness and ambition I once had for my life, I became withdrawn… Losing Mark’s friendship and my silent partnership with facebook wasn’t the only cause of it all… there was a series of events that took place.

I was always a private person so I was somewhat of a mystery to some of Mark’s friends.

Pre 2005 a once close friend of mine was approached by one of Mark’s friends and she was offered money for information on me and for providing a candid picture of me; in which she complied with entirely for the money. That was the first real betrayal I had experienced and I had no knowledge about it until just before Mark and I had an argument that lead to our falling out.

At one point random people on my MySpace friends list were also being contacted and asked to provide information on me and it scared me. So I began to distance myself from MySpace, Eventually my Myspace account got deleted for awhile. If anyone remembers Mark Zuckerberg used to be quite active on MySpace sending out invites and what not to join facemash and facebook.

I was completely devastated by broken promises, disappointment, hurt, betrayal, failure, being forgotten, feeling worthless, disrespected, and the worst thing for me was going through the embarrassment of being ridiculed, denied and absolutely alienated without any empathy, compassion or acknowledgment of my feelings from anyone.

I became reclusive avoiding people and hardly ever leaving my home. I avoided facebook, any article online that mentioned anything to do with facebook. I avoided watching The Social Network movie when it came out, and all the curiosity about the Erica Albright character that the movie sparked in people all over the World.

I didn’t confide in anyone I kept all the hurt and betrayal and everything else I had felt all to myself. Eventually, I Lost all my friends and honestly I didn’t care, because prior to losing Mark’s friendship Mark told me to prepare myself for a bright future and find out who my true friends were…

Even though my future began to look bleak and I lost the most important friend that made me feel valued and made a great effort to listen to me, Mark never knew that I too managed to hang on every word he said… even to this day.

I really counted on Mark, He made me so many huge promises to help change my life in return for all the sincere ways that I helped him and he really let me down, but I also let him down by not being able to be there for him and I think that added a lot of resentment, but I wasn’t given a 2nd chance to be there for him. Even though I wanted to I couldn’t and I don’t think Dustin or Eduardo ever liked me.

Mark was really special to me, although I didn’t tell him how much I actually cared, I made sure to show it but unfortunately Mark didn’t seem to see that I showed that I cared a lot in all the ways I’d look out for him… all the advice, encouragement, direction, support and ideas I’d give him, and ultimately my Loyalty.

People wonder how and why I have managed to remain hidden for so long, Why nobody has ever heard from me, or seen me. It must be true that I don’t exist right?… Easy enough for people to believe, Especially when Mark Zuckerberg himself has been telling the World that I don’t exist, but I don’t have hard feeling’s towards Mark on that… because I always told him I wanted to remain anonymous at one point I did say it was okay to say that I never existed. Keeping my life private was very important to me and clearly Mark respected my wish regardless. It’s just unfortunately it paved the way for me to be entirely written off and put in a vulnerable position to fend for myself.

Especially while Dustin Moskovitz cold heartily denounced me publicly on 3 occasions through the years. The first time was on Mark Zuckerberg’s facebook page when I had attempted to reach out to Mark, It was approx. 2006 or 2007… I remember every word Dustin said during that time and how humiliated I felt because it was public for all to see and all I could think of was Mark didn’t care to stop him. Nobody knows but I cried uncontrollably to myself about it and logged off facebook and avoided it for a long time. Then I reached out to Dustin in 2015 or 2016 and got Blocked. Then tried again December of 2017 and got Blocked again. Dustin has knowledge of the truth of my existence and was at my old apartment a few times years ago. I didn’t deserve to be treated the way that I have been treated. I have been treated with ultimate disrespect as If I am dirt or scum deliberately and that angers me a lot as it would anyone.

I am a Human being. I have a soul, I have feelings and memories I cannot forget. I don’t understand how cruel, selfish and ungrateful someone can be to someone that had a hand in the beginning starting something that eventually made them a Billionaire and in return kick them when they are clearly down at their lowest already in life. What kind of person does that?… Naturally I am a very forgiving person and no matter how much Dustin’s behavior and actions towards me hurt me, I still tried to reach out to him on a few occasions through e-mail, facebook and Twitter.

Meanwhile My life has always been hard. I grew up living in poverty, raised by a single mother that has Schizophrenia and because of her traumatic frequent mental breakdowns I spent time in and out of foster homes. I was unable to get a proper education because my life was chaos for the most part and I didn’t have proper guidance and support. I have always looked after my Mom and the difficulties with handling her schizophrenic episodes is very tough. The stress of it all is mentally draining it also comes with a lot of embarrassment, and That was one major reason I never wanted popularity or fame of any kind. It is easy for the World to make fun of people with mental illness. I didn’t want that to ever happen to my Mom.

… What more can I say?… Ultimately I am a reject.
There is no simpler way of putting it and because of that I won’t subject myself to Worldwide ridicule and shame by revealing an actual photo of myself to the public. I know people are curious about me and what I actually look like and it is flattering but I don’t have resources to protect myself other than keeping my identity and privacy to myself.

Keeping my early involvement with facebook and everything that happened such a secret from everyone all these years has weighed very heavily on my conscience day after day.

Nobody in this World can understand or relate to the hurt, disrespect, betrayal, and alienation that I have felt and dealt with entirely alone in silence all these years. While facebook and Mark Zuckerberg is in my face daily no matter what I do, where I am… I can’t escape facebook it Haunts me…

I definitely have a lot of mixed feelings… I’ve always been sad about what happened but I am also proud of Mark and what he has done with facebook but I cannot proudly and freely say to anyone in person “I had a very influential part in the creation of facebook.” because nobody would believe me and that’s just how it is.

Nobody knows what any that feels like for me, but I do my best to stay positive and hopeful everyday.

There was a couple times after our fight that I was face to face with Mark… but we didn’t actually talk. He couldn’t talk to me. The first time was around March 2005. Mark was with Chris Hughes, Dustin Moskovitz, Eduardo Saverin, and Sean Parker. During that time Eduardo was very rude and insulting towards me. Even though Mark and I weren’t talking; Mark actually intervened twice to tell Eduardo to stop at one point I think Eduardo was trying to get Mark to talk to me but he wouldn’t so Eduardo shoved Mark towards me and Mark bumped into me and during that time none of them knew that my Mom became mentally unstable and was just admitted to a Psychiatric Hospital a day or two prior. I was dealing with a lot at that time so I was very quiet and just not fully present. Before leaving Sean said to Mark “Is there anything you want to ask or tell her?” Mark looked at me and said “No, not at all.” as we stood maybe 3-4 feet across from each other. One of the other times was around 2009 or 2010. Mark was with two older men, one of the men was a Lawyer; He offered me his card and I declined. I think it was Elliot Schrage.

Despite everything I don’t hate Mark, I Never have. Mark truly is a good person… Always striving to do good. I just can’t speak for him and his actions towards me personally by leaving me completely alienated… is it 100% intentional?… Is it influenced by others?… Is it just the fact that I have moved around so much because I couldn’t afford the rent so we lost touch completely?… Is there too much resentment?… I honestly don’t know!… Mark was always a nice guy, a little “weird” as I used to say but it was a good weird, He’d put a lot of thought into future goals and some of his goals at the time seemed a little impossible to me but he was just so positive about reaching all the goals he had planned and wanted to be helpful to others… He wanted to help me better my life but in the end It didn’t workout that way.

We both let each other down, and the terrible thing is that we were unable to reconcile because neither of us were able to speak to each other, so we both don’t have a clue how each other felt afterwards. The few times Mark and I were in each others presence after our fight, I think he had the intention to speak to me, but he choose not to. I think of those moments often, I recite everything that happened and how just like Mark in those moments I didn’t say anything when I could have. I always wish that I could go back in time and just say something. Maybe I missed out on my chances, because through the years I’ve made countless efforts to try and reach Mark but it is impossible, He’s too sheltered. I’ve reached out to everyone I could think of that is in Mark’s inner circle but I get Ignored, Blocked and Ridiculed by everyone I’ve reached out to. It’s hard to take sometimes because it is very hurtful and sad to be forgotten, alienated and left in such a vulnerable position. I have no idea if it is under Mark’s wishes that I be turned away or if it’s purely ignorance or disbelief that I really am who I say I am, but regardless after all these years, I still remain hopeful that Mark and I can talk to each other again one day.