In the name of full disclosure, I have an obsession with Facebook. Not with posting statuses and pictures and monitoring my news feed (although I waste plenty of time on that as well), but with the company itself; its business model, and, of course, its fascinating CEO. I get excited every time a new article about Facebook pops up in the paper or in Fortune (which at the student rate, is probably one of the best splurges I’ve made in college), and I spent weeks monitoring the the stock price after the IPO – y’know, just for kicks.

So naturally, I also have an obsession with the not-so-official movie, The Social Network. My favorite part of watching this movie is picking through the drama and finding the concepts and lessons that do or don’t match up with what I’ve learned at McCombs – which leads me to…

3 Lessons from The Social Network that McCombs Taught Me Better

1. The value of a good idea – Although the value of the site certainly came from the coding and developing, the Facebook we know and love today wouldn’t have been possible without the “ wouldn’t-it-be-cool-if” idea that started it all. Beyond business law discussions about the legal implications of intellectual property and the accounting concepts of intangibles and R&D, McCombs professors have always been quick to point out that not all valuable assets show up on the balance sheet. You often have to look past the financial statements to see a company’s potential.

2. Persistence pays off – Admittedly, in the movie, the development phase of the website didn’t get a lot of screen time, but that’s definitely not to say that it was trivial. What does show up in the movie is the never-ending coding and updates and the refusal to settle on “good enough” when improvements can still be made. From classes, to recruiting, to informal conversations with professors, these themes have been drilled into my brain from the moment I set foot in McCombs.

3. It’s not all about the money – Although some might disagree that this was really the point of the movie, the social, legal, and ethical consequences of money-driven actions were undeniably pervasive in The Social Network. One of the greatest things about McCombs, and the MPA program in particular, is the constant discussion of ethical implications in business decisions. We hear it again and again in business law, the accounting lyceum, and inevitably in almost every course. Money is what makes the business world run, but it’s not the only thing to consider.