A federal appeals court today declined to review a legal challenge from Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who say that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stole their idea.
NY Mag, Even Federal-Appeals Courts Are Over the Winklevii’s Facebook Suit.
NYTimes Bits, “it is hard for anyone to feel too bad about their failure. The settlement they signed with Facebook in 2008 is now worth around $200 million.”
Winklevii’s say they were misled about the value of the stock. Facebook is “pleased with the court’s decision.”
So Zuckerberg stole the idea and lied about the value of the company to screw them over some more. But that’s the American way; winner take all.
From a December 60 Minutes profile of Zuckerberg that was part of his victory lap after surviving The Social Network:
“You know, it’s hard for me to fully wrap my head around where they’re coming from on this. You know, early on, they had an idea that was completely separate from Facebook. And that, I mean, it was a dating site for Harvard. And I agreed to help them out with it, to help them. Right, I mean, it wasn’t a job, they weren’t paying me, I wasn’t hired by them or anything like that. And then, the idea that I would then go work on something completely different, like Facebook, and that they would be upset about this all these years later is kinda mindboggling for me. Now, I mean, this is another thing that I think the movie really missed is, I mean, they make it seem like this whole lawsuit is such a huge part of Facebook’s history. I’ve probably spent less than two weeks of my time worried about this lawsuit at all, right?” Zuckerberg replied. …
“Do you feel any, any remorse at all about the twins or anything that happened with them?” Stahl asked.
“I mean, after all this time, I feel bad that they still feel bad about it,” Zuckerberg said.
Kara Swisher says she doesn’t feel sorry for the twins. “I’m sorry. They got paid $65 million for one medium idea that they never could’ve made into anything,” she said.
“Well, you sound very sympathetic to Mark as an individual, to me,” Stahl said.
“In this case, yes, ’cause he is the entrepreneur. I think he definitely tried to screw with the Winklevoss [twins]. That’s clear. He promised to do a service for them he didn’t do. He did. But he also did build the business without their help,” Swisher said.
Three years ago, Swisher coined the term “Toddler CEO,” referring to Zuckerberg.
“And you told us that you thought he was inexperienced and way too young to run this company,” Stahl remembered.
But three years later, Swisher said, “He’s done a great job. He’s a prodigy. The toddler’s a prodigy, as it turns out.”
As a rule, I’m not a fan of owning ideas. I’m glad to give Zuckerberg credit where credit is due. But if, as everyone pretty much acknowledges, the prodigy CEO worth $13.5 billion stole the idea and lied about the company’s worth, the Winklevoss twins deserve their fair win in court.
It was this 2007 article by Luke O’Brien originally published in 02138, an independent magazine aimed at Harvard University alumni now out of business, that first persuaded me to side with the Winklevoss’s.