The Winklevoss twins, the famed rowers who sued the hell out of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, are, well, suing him again.
It’s difficult to grasp all the information out there about this, or to know what claims are true and which are baloney. It’s certainly nearly impossible to sympathize with the Winklevoss twins, who have a seemingly rock-solidly-demonstrated record of being two of the most despicable and vile spoiled rich boys in the history of the human race; at the same time, it’s not exactly impossible to imagine that Mark Zuckerberg screwed them, and the law is the law.
So far the Winklevoss twins have otten $65 million and other concessions from Facebook, but the lawsuits continue, in fact, suing Facebook appears to be their full time jobs.
Are they right? Do they deserve more money? Are they wrong and just trying to loot a successful business? Or will we never know?
Hey, if they win, the settlement goes up about $130 million. I don’t blame them for being dogged. But it looks like they finally did give up and they they won’t appeal to the Supremes.
Where did you hear that? Last week, the New York Times reported, “On Wednesday, they told the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco that they would not appeal that court’s decision to the Supreme Court, said Jerome B. Falk Jr., partner at Howard Rice and a lawyer for the brothers. Mr. Falk said his clients had made the decision but declined to comment further. In a statement, Facebook said: ‘We’ve considered this case closed for a long time, and we’re pleased to see the other party now agrees.’”
So as far as I know, they’ve ended the litigation.
Well, if “The Social Network” is to be believed, they planted the seed of the idea, but failed to make any type of formal deal, or for that matter anything beyond a handshake agreement (if even that) with Zuckerberg. And again, if the movie is any guide, it was really Zuckerberg who developed the meat of the concept.
Thank you. I’m impressed at how litigious they are. They’re also involved in a suit against Quinn Emanuel, one of their law firms, as well as a couple of other suits (for which they’re the defendants).
All I know is what I saw in the movie, but if the movie is essentially accurate, then I agree with Zuckerberg’s basic argument that they had a general idea for something (which wasn’t even really all that original - social networking sites already existed), but that Zuckerberg himself was the one who did the hard work and made it into what it is now. He’s the one who sat up night after night writing code and expanding the idea beyond anything the twins ever dreamed of. Zuckerberg, to me, came off as arrogant but not wrong. Facebook is his child, for all intents and purposes.
Maybe, but the twins didn’t bother putting in the “hard work” because Zuckerberg continuously lied to them. Presumably they would’ve gone and found someone else to do the programing had they been aware that they were getting snookered. And they not only gave Zuckerberg the idea for the website, but also the source-code they’d already produced.
So I think they were legitimately defrauded and deserved to win their original lawsuit. Their current lawsuit is some sort of technical argument about whether Facebook paid what they were supposed to in the initial settlement, which I have no opinion on.
Yeah, well that’s why movies aren’t admissible as evidence. While based on real events, The Social Network was not a documentary, and many of the things that happened in the movie were fictionalized to help make a compelling narrative.
As Simplico said, the twins alleged that Zuckerberg stole not only their idea but a years worth of source code. They conceived of their website in 2002. They hired Zuckerberg in 2003 after both of the programmers they’d hired left for other jobs. Zuckerberg spent 10 weeks working on their site, at the end of which he launched his own site, which was essentially identical in concept. They filed suit almost immediately.
They actually reached a settlement on the facts three years ago. All that’s still in dispute is the amount of the settlement.
How similar was Zuckerberg’s website in terms of code in addition to being identical in concept? Does anyone know or is secrecy part of the settlement?
The code for something like facebook, especially in the beginning is trivial, any group of skilled coders could do it in weeks/months (there is no way in hell there were multiple man-years of quality code surrounding it’s beginning, it’s just too simple of an app) - the source code is not where the value was
The real value is in pushing the site and making it the one everyone goes to, that’s where I think Zuckerberg deserves credit, he had the vision and did the hard work of pushing the site until it achieved momentum, that doesn’t happen by chance.
While I give credit to Zuckerberg for point #2, it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if he did steal ideas and screw over the twins
The real value was getting there first, as Zuckerberg and the twins both realized. Thats why the Source Code is important, not because its particularly difficult to create, but because it takes time.
If Zuckerberg just stole their idea, the Winklevosses wouldn’t have a case. The Winklevosses won their settlement because Zuckerberg defrauded them into unknowingly stopping development on their idea, and then used their inaction and their source code to make sure that he developed it first.
Stealing (non-patented) ideas isn’t actionable, fraud is.
I think much of the value of Facebook was in the decisions Mark Zuckerberg made after he left Harvard. For example, I believe that the Winklevoss twins wanted to limit the site to just Harvard students; Zuckerberg opened it up to other schools and then eventually the whole world. He also made it easy to add additional content to one’s page. Remember that at one point well after the Winklevoss twins were no longer involved in the company, MySpace was the dominant social networking site. But Facebook overtook it.
So I think that $65 million (or $200 million, which is what the settlement grew to be worth) is probably a generous estimate of what the company was worth when they were involved. There’s no guarantee that, had they continued to be involved, the company would have been as successful.
The twins alleged that he stole all of their code,and that the original launch of “thefacebook.com” was mostly their code. They argue that’s the only way Zuckerburg could have built his site from scratch in a few weeks.
As others have mentioned, the concept of a social media website already existed, and if all that Zuckerberg had done was take their general concept, there’d be no case. The case hinges on two things: 1) the use of code the Winlevoss twins owned and 2) the fact that Zuckerberg was doing work that was commissioned by the twins when he created his own site. The latter is an awfully messy claim. The former is pretty straightforwar.
I know very little about the particulars of this case but I assume the issue of work for hire was a major factor. It doesn’t matter if Zuckerberg did all of the programming work and if Facebook was completely his creation. If he had a contract with the Winklevoss brothers to develop a website for them, then they owned it not him.
It takes so little time that it is rendered completely unimportant. Zuckerberg could have started with zero code and he would not have been set back by any material amount of time nor had any material impact on his success (IMO).
Given that Friendster and MySpace existed for 2 years already, that makes the incredibly short development cycle even less important.
Note: MySpace was coded in 10 days when it came out.
IMO, the credit is due simply for “making it happen” in the market, which is really a great achievement and the center of the real work for something like this.
I think you misinterpreted my point. I didn’t say anything about whether they have a case or not, simply an opinion regarding ethical behavior on Zuckerberg’s part using my personal right/wrong scale.
My post may not be clear on this point: If he did steal their code, then he should pay. Despite the fact that I said it is simple to create from scratch, if he broke the rules then he broke the rules and should pay.
Twins: We have this idea and we want to hire you to work on it. Will you do it?
Mark: Yes, I will.
Twins: Okay, keep us updated.
Mark: Okay.
<weeks pass>
Twins: Hey, what’s going on with our site?
Mark: I’m working on it.
Twins: Okay, keep us updated.
<Instead of delivering work to the twins, Mark instead launches his own website that is significantly based on the twins’ idea>
Twins: Hey, what happened? Where’s our site?
Mark: Hey, I forgot to tell you. I’m not doing a site for you. I made my own site.
When Zuckerberg started on the project, two other programmers had already spent almost exactly a year on it. And then Zuckerberg took another three months. Granted all three were students and not working on it full time, but it obviously did take a material amount of time.