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Given how much we’ve told Facebook about ourselves, it’s only fair that we know something about Facebook and its ambitious founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. Sure, there was that blog post roundup by Business Insider that detailed the site’s sketchy beginnings, that comment last week that (newsflash!) Zuckerberg doesn’t believe in privacy, and that recent security hole that revealed Zuck’s weekend plans to go bowling.

But until the blockbuster movie is out, David Kirkpatrick’s new book on the company should prove to be the most valuable fodder yet for those trying to backwards engineer a more detailed profile of Zuckerberg.

And it explains why Facebook’s so into that ‘Talk-like-a-pirate’ language option. After rolling out of bed, often in the afternoon, Zuckerberg would run intense afternoon coding sessions around his dining room table like Captain Jack Sparrow:

If someone got hungry and wanted to go out for fast food, recalls a frequent visitor, “Mark would, like, pound the table and just say, ‘No! We’re in lockdown! No one leaves the table until we’re done with this thing.” Zuckerberg was determined to keep this ship moving forward, and he was more than happy to be the captain.

Not infrequently, he acted like he was captain of a pirate ship. Among the few possessions he had brought to Silicon Valley with him were his fencing paraphernalia, which he left lying in a pile. Often he’d grab his foil and start swinging it through the air. “Okay, we’ve got to talk about this,” he would declare, one hand held behind his back, lunging forward with this foil. Often the sword would get uncomfortably close to people’s faces.

As the Facebook boys started dealing increasingly with real business professionals, a reputation for rambunctiousness spread throughout the valley. “It’s Lord of the Flies over there,” one executive told an executive recruiter. Zuckerberg had to be careful which business card he handed out at meetings. He had two sets. One simply identified him as “CEO.” The other: “I’m CEO…b*tch!”

Of course, pajama bottoms and cheeky business cards are now the sine qua non of internet startups everywhere. And nothing says you’re an ubercool Harvard dropout like a set of fencing equipment.

But there are more poignant, more mature moments too – the kind of moments that remind you that Zuckerberg isn’t just a pirate but an entrepreneurial monster.

Since Viacom’s corporate planes were in fact unavailable, Wolf chartered a top-of-the-line Gulfstream V for the trip from the San Francisco airport to Westchester County Airport, near Zuckerberg’s parents’ home in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. Wolf flew out that morning from New York on American Airlines. The MTV executive was waiting aboard the G5 as if it were the most normal thing in the world when Zuckerberg arrived, late, about 5:30 p.m. Then, as Wolf had shrewdly planned, they spent five uninterrupted hours together aboard the plane. He was resolved to find a way for Viacom to buy Facebook.

For much of the trip, however, the 21-year-old was in control of the conversation. He interrogated Wolf about MTV’s business. How did companies like Viacom make their money? How much did MTV charge for advertising? How do you build your audience?

During the trip Zuckerberg took to admiring the G5. “This plane is amazing,” he said.

“Maybe you should just sell a piece of the company to us,” Wolf replied. “Then you can have one for yourself.”

Wolf invited his guest to sit in the jump seat in the cockpit as the powerful jet landed at Westchester. When it pulled up to the private aviation terminal, two cars were waiting. One was Wolf’s corporate sedan to drive him into the city. The other was the Zuckerberg family minivan, from which Mark’s parents emerged. They beamed and gave their son a big hug. It was as if he were merely coming home from a semester at college.

The MTV president kept up his pursuit after the holidays, flying to Palo Alto in January with an elaborate PowerPoint presentation and again the next month with a more personal appeal. He and Zuckerberg were becoming chums. They took a long walk around the palmy, well-groomed streets and stopped by Zuckerberg’s one-bedroom apartment. The place was messy, with a mattress on the floor, piles of books, a bamboo mat, and a lamp. Then they headed for dinner at a nearby restaurant. Wolf popped the same question he’d asked on the plane. “Why don’t you just sell to us?” he asked. “You’d be very wealthy.”

“You just saw my apartment,” Zuckerberg replied. “I don’t really need any money. And anyway, I don’t think I’m ever going to have an idea this good again.” Viacom would try money nonetheless, with a cash offer of $800 million and provisions that could make it worth as much as $1.5 billion. But like many other suitors, the Viacom executives discovered they were dealing with a formidable character. If his invention’s early appeal was at a freshman level, exploiting the desire of college students to check each other out, his professed ambition was much higher: to change the world.

Read the rest of the excerpt of The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World at TechCrunch