
'The Social Network': reviewed by Lawrence Lessig - eugenejen
http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/78081/sorkin-zuckerberg-the-social-network
======
waterlesscloud
This is not a "review" so much as it is Lessig explaining why the internet is
different, and why it is important, and why it matters to you. Especially to
you, reader of Hacker News.

Reading this review has further improved my opinion of Lawrence Lessig.

~~~
trickjarrett
Every time I see a video of him speaking, or read something he has written, my
opinion of him leaps forward. He uses a lot of big words and yet is able to
clearly and simply explain that which needs to be explained. Why the Internet
should not be governed by the industrial revolution's concepts.

~~~
wallflower
"Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture talk at the 2002 Open Source Conference. The
master of the simple slides shows us how it’s done. And since, as he says,
this is his 100th time for this talk, he has this bad boy down solid. Even
though this talk is from 2002, his slide presentation style is still as fresh
today as Axe Body Spray."[1]

<http://randomfoo.net/oscon/2002/lessig/free.html>

[1] [http://www.knowhr.com/blog/2006/08/21/top-10-best-
presentati...](http://www.knowhr.com/blog/2006/08/21/top-10-best-
presentations-ever/)

------
puredemo
This review doesn't make much sense to me. As another commenter claimed, I
wonder if we even saw the same film. All the complaints that Lessig makes are
clearly addressed in the movie.

For starters, it's not at issue here whether the Winkelvii deserve $65M. The
film makes it abundantly clear that they do not. They are simply payed off (at
a cost comparable to that of a speeding ticket per one character) for
expediency, as Zuckerberg would not appear sympathetic to a jury.

The lawyers are not presented in the film as wise elders. I certainly don't
recall them having any better comebacks than the younger characters. If
anything, the lawyers are frequently presented as sharks; amoral, chaotic
neutral characters who try to glean assets from the younger entrepreneurs at
every opportunity.

Lessig goes on to conclude that the real story here is not Zukerberg's drive,
that instead the film should really be about platform, the internet itself.
But this is not a film about how neat the internet is, whether Lessig thinks
it should be or not. It is about Zuckerberg and his dogged ambition. It's
about the steps he took to develop and expand his creation into a worldwide
phenomenon. Obviously the internet made that possible, but to denigrate the
film because the internet itself wasn't its central thematic focus seems
obtuse.

------
rblion
It's fair to say that Mark is the Bill Gates of our generation. A technical
prodigy with limited social skills that saw a boundless opportunity and just
took the leap. Now he is rich, powerful, and hated.

He is not a murderer or a saint. Just a dude who wanted to win more than
anyone else.

No idea is 100% original and are usually the sum of many great ideas that
already existed.

People who didn't take the leap fully just blamed him/sued him instead of
trying to build something better. I bet you most of them couldn't if they
tried.

~~~
gnaritas
> It's fair to say that Mark is the Bill Gates of our generation.

Hyperbole much? Zuck is no Gates by any stretch of the imagination. Steve Jobs
and Bill Gates revolutionized the world and brought computers to the masses.
Zuck built a popular website, and not even an original one, these things
aren't anywhere near the same league.

~~~
ghshephard
"popular website" - the largest social network in the world that took the
platform to 500 million people?

Bill gates didn't invent operating systems, word processors, or spread sheets
- but he certainly executed better than anyone before him.

I'd put Mark in the same class as Bill.

~~~
gnaritas
I don't care if it's the most popular website on the planet, it's still just a
website in an era of websites. Social networks weren't even close to new when
Facebook came out; computers in every home was absurd when Gates and Jobs
decided to make it a reality. It's not at all comparable to the change they
brought to the world.

Mark's a billionaire, no doubt, but he's just not in that league, not even
close. The world before Facebook is hardly different than the world after it;
the world before computers were in every home is vastly different than the
world after it. This Facebook worship is absurd, if it disappeared tomorrow
the world would move on and hardly miss a beat. If every Windows PC
disappeared tomorrow the world would basically collapse, business across the
globe would grind to a halt.

Linux is a platform, Windows is a platform, Facebook is a toy.

~~~
ilovecomputers
What must a website achieve in order to be considered as influential as the
creations made by (continuing the analogy) Bill Gates and Steve Jobs?

~~~
gnaritas
When the world economy depends on a website the way it does on PC's, then
someone can claim to be in that category. Frankly I don't think that'll
happen. The next big earth shattering thing on the scale of the PC revolution
probably won't be a website. Actually, the Internet itself was the next big
revolution after PC's, and probably then the introduction of the web. What's
next? Who knows!

~~~
yters
> When the world economy depends on a website the way it does on PC's

What do you call the internet?

------
bokonist
_Imagine a jester from King George III’s court, charged in 1790 with writing a
comedy about the new American Republic...._

It annoys me that in a piece attacking Sorkin for having a cartoon vision of
the world, Lessig uses an analogy with a cartoon understanding of the world
himself. The British monarch in 1790 did not have court jesters, they were
long gone ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jester> ).

~~~
martey
I think this point is similar to that made in Nathan Heller's Slate article -
<http://www.slate.com/id/2269308/> \- that Sorkin believes that Ivy League
schools are still controlled by some kind of elite class (if not the WASP
elite of old, some kind of new Internet-connected parvenu elite). Similarly, a
member of King George the Third's court (jester or not) might assume that the
United States was controlled by a landed aristocracy similar to that in
England.

The fact that the 18th century British court did not have jesters is
tangential at most. Call our theoretical author a macaroni (see
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macaroni_%28fashion%29> ) if you must.

~~~
Alex3917
I've been to parties in the bike room of the porc and I've been to Henley,
both are pretty much as described. If anything Harvard is actually a lot more
waspish and cliquey than they make it out to be. It's not the majority of the
students but it has an enormous effect on the culture.

------
patrickaljord
The problem with that movie is that it seems to describe Mark as both evil and
a genius hacker. I think he's neither.

~~~
frisco
I've definitely heard accounts from credible hackers that Zuck is up there. I
don't know him personally, but I wouldn't be surprised.

I do like Lessig's point that "Zuck's a genius, but so are many". There's a
lot of insecurity around places like HN where people go, "baw, Zuck can't be a
genius, because then not only would he be wealthier and more famous than me,
but he'd also be more capable!" The "who's smarter?" argument is really a
waste of time. It's highly likely that Zuck is an absurdly strong engineer.
But, so are many others, possibly you included. Build until you hit your
natural limits; before that, no one has any idea how "smart" you are, yourself
included. Find your own market to win instead of taking the respect and credit
away from him.

~~~
anigbrowl
I'm a great deal more impressed by his status as the battle-tested CEO of a
global behemoth at age 24 even though it is fashionable to dislike him. I've
met a lot of skilled and innovative programmers, but self-made billionaires
are in short supply.

~~~
frisco
Factual: Zuck is 26. But your point remains.

~~~
enjo
Didn't the point still hold at 24?

~~~
frisco
Yes, that's what "But your point remains" means. It implies it stood at 24.

------
gruseom
I just got home from watching the movie, fired up HN and was pleased to see
this review. But now I'm wondering if Lessig and I watched the same movie. I
don't think it portrays the Zuckerberg character as evil or the others as
victims.

The Winkelvii, as the movie hilariously calls them, seem indignant not so much
that their idea was "stolen" as that the geek refused to know his place, which
presumably was to code things up for them in exchange for token equity.
They're not bad guys, but they're angry that their skewed view of the world,
with them naturally at the top, turns out wrong. The movie does not make it
seem like the Zuckerberg character owes these dudes shit or that they could
ever in 65 million years have created Facebook. They thought of an exclusive
friends website merely because they were steeped in exclusivity to begin with.
Only the Zuckerberg character grasps its real power. That's the meaning of the
lightbulb moment where a friend asks him about a girl and he suddenly sees
"relationship status" as a way for Facebook to address this need.

The Saverin character (marvelously acted, by the way - who _is_ that guy? -
his emotional vibrancy is remarkable) is sympathetic but clueless, doggedly
trying to turn Facebook into a small business that ekes out a bit of ad
revenue. His dream for Facebook is that it be allowed to join the business
club the way he personally craves admission into a prestigious student club.
His happiest moment is when he gets an executive title; his main frustration
that more mid-level ad execs don't throw him a few bones. The movie makes it
clear that despite being "the business guy" he has no understanding of the
business, whereas the Zuckerberg character grasps it instinctively, spends
half the movie trying to explain it to him and finally gives up. On this point
I think the movie gets startups right. I was rather astonished by that. The
other point on which it gets startups -- and Facebook's significance as a
startup -- right is in its emphasis on the founder as CEO. The contrast
between Parker as the dot-com era founder who got deposed and Zuckerberg as a
new generation of founder who retains control is pretty impressive historical
precision on the part of filmmakers who presumably don't know much about
startups.

(Incidentally, it also gets technical details right: the references to wget
and Emacs in the opening scene made my jaw drop for a moment.)

As for Saverin, the movie consistently implies that he could never have
remained part of Facebook, not because Zuckerberg is evil but because the
abyss between the two of them is huge. Indeed, the tragic inevitability of
their split is the core plot of the movie. (The Winkelvoss twins are mostly
comic relief, and boy did those actors nail that.) It does, however, portray
Saverin getting screwed out of his Facebook stock and Zuckerberg not doing
anything about it; that was perhaps the one evil moment.

Even the Sean Parker character is only half-bad. He's a bad boy, but that's a
dramatic device: the movie badly needs some shaking-up by the time Timberlake
appears and his character comes with the trickster energy to do it. Beyond
that, though, the Sean Parker character is the only one who gets what
Zuckerberg is doing, the only one who gives consistently good advice, and the
one who acts as a midwife to Facebook's birth as a real startup.

As for the Zuckerberg character, he's portrayed as an intense Asperger type
who cares more about his vision than he does other people, but also more than
money. The movie flirts with but eventually abandons the idea that he's
motivated by petty revenge. His obsession is with making Facebook as big as it
can get. I've never seen Zuckerberg as an Aspie type (and thought the actor
overdid that aspect, going out of his way to hold the same furrowed expression
the entire movie), but the obsession with making something great and refusal
to let anything stand in its way are classic entrepreneurial qualities that
the movie grants to Zuckerberg fully.

I think Lessig is wrong about the trite moral he thinks the movie is imposing
on the story. The movie doesn't advance that interpretation, it vividly
portrays some of the characters advancing it. That's totally different. The
movie per se isn't concerned with individual characters. Everyone is granted
his/her perspective but no one has any absolute status. What it's about is
_The_ Social Network, not the online one, the real one.

I went to this movie grudgingly and left surprised by how bad I didn't find
it. Guess I shouldn't be, since David Fincher is my favorite working director
(or would be if I could forget the execrable Benjamin Button); as Bob Mondello
said on NPR the other night, I'd pay to watch him direct the phone book.
Beyond that, the acting is unusually good all the way down to the cameos
(except the Zuckerberg actor is too monotone). Where I really disagree with
Lessig is about the writing, which he loved and which to me was ok-with-awful-
bits: it's smart the way that "smartass" is smart and has way too many TV
zingers. (Even those, though, were toned down from the script that was leaked.
That horribly contrived line everyone was quoting a few months ago where a
girl tells Zuckerberg that girls will always hate him because he's an asshole,
I'm happy to report, never made it into the film. [<\-- edit: oops! wrong!]
Fincher has taste.)

~~~
puredemo
That line was in the film, at the end of the opening dinner scene.

~~~
neilk
Accidental downvote, sorry. Yes, this is not only in the first scene but is
revisited at the very end.

~~~
gruseom
Yes, in the runner-up for worst zinger: "you're not an asshole, you're just
trying hard to be one". Huh?

~~~
apotheon
I don't think it was meant so much as a zinger. It was more of an outsider's
clueful view of what the Zuckerberg character has been doing wrong all those
years. Judging by the portrayal in the movie, the Zuckerberg character
actually _has_ been trying really hard to be an asshole -- emulating the Sean
Parker character when that role model stepped into view. Of course, he was
initially told he was an asshole before meeting Parker; it seems he was aiming
for that kind of sense of superiority before, though in a less focused manner,
perhaps by trying to achieve a level of "cool" in general that was informed by
the "coolness" of the assholes around him at Harvard. The Parker character
just stepped neatly into the role of The Perfect Asshole for the Zuckerberg
character.

Note that I refer to the characters, and particularly to the Zuckerberg
character. I do not know enough about Parker to make any guesses about whether
he is anything like the character in this movie. I also think that the real
Zuckerberg either is not simply trying to be an asshole, but rather is an
asshole, or has tried hard and long enough that he succeeded. Zuckerberg's
now-famous quote about The Facebook's early users being dumbfucks for
"trusting" him suggests he was an asshole from day one.

~~~
gruseom
_Zuckerberg's now-famous quote about The Facebook's early users being
dumbfucks for "trusting" him suggests he was an asshole from day one._

I don't agree. There are many things that comment might have been. For
example, it could have been mock-cynical humour. The truth is we don't know
and it's impossible to tell. What it undeniably is, though, is convenient for
anyone who'd like some "evidence" to go with their pre-existing judgment.

I'm not that interested in Facebook and have never paid much attention to
Zuckerberg, but after seeing the movie I was curious and read a few things.
They confirmed _my_ pre-existing judgment, which is that he's nothing like the
nasty Aspergerite of the movie. Also, a lot of people I respect feel
protective towards him and stand up for him. That indicates something. So why,
I wonder, do so many others hate him? Even if he has done every single bad
thing that's been reported (obviously an upper bound on grounds for hate) the
intensity of emotion people have about this guy still seems excessive. Well,
there's a simple explanation at hand: he's the youngest self-made billionaire
ever. _Anyone_ in that position would be widely hated. It's just easier for
people to cope with his massive success if they can add the idea that he's an
asshole -- these are two mental molecules that bond into a very stable
compound -- because now the brain can say, " _I_ may not be the youngest
billionaire in the world, but at least I'm not an asshole". Frankly, when we
find ourselves feeling angry in this way, it's time to look in a mirror.

Oh and one more thing about the zingers: that script seemed to me to have been
optimized for how many smug one-liners could be crammed into it, with no
concern for how people actually think or talk. This is good writing? It's
writing designed to get people to say "what good writing". I'm surprised that
so many critics and smart people fall for this; it's the intellectual
equivalent of mistaking ostentatious glitz for taste. To me, Sorkin and
Mezrich are the real assholes of this story.

~~~
apotheon
What annoys me about Zuckerberg is his own obvious connection to Facebook's
in-practice attitudes toward user privacy.

Perhaps "asshole" is the wrong term for him, really. It's possible he even
means well. Meaning well is no excuse for taking advantage of people, pulling
regular bait-and-switch maneuvers, and generally doing things on a regular
basis that show obvious and nigh-malicious disregard for the privacy concerns
of millions of credulous users.

I have no problem with people being billionaires. I hope to be one myself some
day (hope springs eternal), and I'd have nothing but respect for how
Zuckerberg got there if he had not used such sketchy tactics as part of his
path to riches.

------
mycroftiv
That is not a "review" so much as it is Lessig expressing hero-worship of Mark
Zuckerberg and attempting to minimize the numerous substantive charges of
unethical behavior that have been directed at Zuckerberg. The summation
paragraph begins "Zuckerberg is a rightful hero of our time. I want my kids to
admire him." I don't have an opinion about the movie (haven't seen it), but
reading this review has greatly reduced my opinion of Lawrence Lessig.

~~~
veemjeem
I'm guessing you only read the first page of the article. The real meat and
gist of what he was trying to convey was in the second page, where Facebook
was compared to Nantucket Nectars. The movie "review" was just there to catch
user attention, like authors do with the first few pages of a book.

Here's the key quotes:

"Instead, what’s important here is that Zuckerberg’s genius could be embraced
by half-a-billion people within six years of its first being launched, without
(and here is the critical bit) asking permission of anyone. The real story is
not the invention. It is the platform that makes the invention sing. "

...

"As “network neutrality” gets bargained away—to add insult to injury, by an
administration that was elected with the promise to defend it—the
opportunities for the Zuckerbergs of tomorrow will shrink. And as they do, we
will return more to the world where success depends upon permission. And
privilege. And insiders. And where fewer turn their souls to inventing the
next great idea."

~~~
lzw
In doing so, Lessig is reviewing the film he wishes was made about the
internet, rather than reviewing this film based on the story it chose to tell.
(Which is a compelling story.)

This violates the first rule of movie reviewers-- we don't care how great of a
film director you imagine you'd be if you were in a position to make movies,
rather than just review them.

I don't like slapstick comedies, but I'd never criticize one fro not being a
scream sequel.

~~~
chopsueyar
Exactly. Mod parent up.

I did see the movie this morning at 10am.

Lessig faults the film for not telling the story of Chris Hughs and Sean
Parker's utilization of the internet for nonprofits and the election of Obama.

 _This is a platform that has made democratic innovation possible—and it was
on the Facebook platform resting on that Internet platform that another
Facebook co-founder, Chris Hughes, organized the most important digital
movement for Obama, and that the film’s petty villain, Sean Parker, organized
Causes, one of the most important tools to support nonprofit social missions.

The tragedy—small in the scale of things, no doubt—of this film is that
practically everyone watching it will miss this point. _

I think Lessing really misses the point of the movie. What I saw was a young
guy able to take VC money and not lose his post as CEO.

I didn't see Parker portrayed as a 'petty villian'.

SPOILER ALERT: In the movie, Parker first learns of thefacebook after a one
night stand with a Stanford undergraduate. He asks if he can check his email
on her laptop and notices the site. At that point, Stanford was one of the few
university .edu email addresses allowed on the site. He is so convinced,
thefacebook will be the next big thing, he needs to find the creators of the
site.

Basically, Parker takes Fanning under his wing, suggesting he move to
California. There is probably a 20 to 30 minute VC montage, where Parker helps
thefacebook get funding, using his various connections. He also has Zuckerberg
dress in his pajamas, (Parker drops him off in an Escalade and waits outside)
and go to a specific VC, and has Zuckerberg tell the VC, Sean Parker says
"Fuck you" and then leave.

I own Startup.com (the movie, not the domain), and also E-Dreams. Watching
both too many times, neither movie had a happy ending for the founders (within
the context of those specific startups).

Startup.com CTO is ousted by the CEO (the two founders were best friends).
Kozmo.com's CEO got ousted by the VCs.

This movie left me feeling icky at the ending. Not "Requiem for a Dream" soul
fuck, but you really don't know who is a good guy and who is a bad guy. It
really isn't black and white like that.

It did, however, have one of the most cinematic uses of 'wget' I have ever
seen.

Also, kind of cheap headline there. I thought it would be a movie review, not
an articulated rant. I expect more from that Harvard law dude.

Also, I have never heard of Parker before this movie, I was only aware of
Fanning as the Napster creator.

EDIT: Changed ambiguous pronouns

------
qjz
_Zuckerberg faced no such barrier. For less than $1,000, he could get his idea
onto the Internet. He needed no permission from the network provider. He
needed no clearance from Harvard to offer it to Harvard students. Neither with
Yale, or Princeton, or Stanford. Nor with every other community he invited in.
Because the platform of the Internet is open and free, or in the language of
the day, because it is a “neutral network,” a billion Mark Zuckerbergs have
the opportunity to invent for the platform._

This doesn't ring true to me. It is the _lack_ of true freedom on the Internet
that makes Facebook such an enormous success. If ISPs allowed users to connect
to the Internet without any restrictions, it's quite possible they would be
running the equivalent of web/mail/chat servers on their home computers, and a
true social network might have evolved. As it is, such innovation is
restricted to a much smaller group of individuals whose entrepreneurial
motivations will impose even more restrictions on users (for example, web
sites are springing up that require Facebook authentication, totally
eliminating the choice to opt out of Facebook).

------
apotheon
Lessig tells a good story, and makes important points about the power and
value of an Internet free from stifling regulation. He mistakes the source of
at least half the regulation, though, and casts a scurrilous, unethical
bastard of an entitlement-culture entrepreneur as the hero of his tale.

Success is not the sole measure of heroism. Private enterprise is not the sole
source of stifling regulation. Let's find a better hero of Internet-based
entrepreneurial spirit and wildly successful efforts to get ahead of the curve
(such as Paul Graham, oddly enough), and let's not minimize the efforts of
government to screw over the openness of the Internet by chalking it all up to
caving in to corporate interests.

Last I checked, corporate interests had little benefit to gain from granting
the Executive branch of US government the power to "shut down" the Internet,
for instance.

------
anigbrowl
As someone who has often cheered Lessig's opposition to the status quo, I am
greatly puzzled by this piece.

 _Did Zuckerberg breach his contract? Maybe, for which the damages are more
like $650, not $65 million. Did he steal a trade secret? Absolutely not. Did
he steal any other “property”? Absolutely not—the code for Facebook was his,
and the “idea” of a social network is not a patent. It wasn’t justice that
gave the twins $65 million; it was the fear of a random and inefficient system
of law._

If we take Lessig's factual assertions about the originality of the code as
face value, it still seems as if Zuckerberg ripped off a lot of ideas that
were shared in confidence, and repeatedly deceived the originators of those
ideas into thinking that he was working diligently on their behalf.

I can't understand Lessig's criticism of the system as stated. It is not as if
these ideas were found by Zuckerberg on a Usenet forum or overheard on the
bus, and the Winkelvoss twins then went after him with an army of copyright
lawyers; some sort of proposal was followed by some sort of agreement, and
Zuckerberg was given access to the fundamentals of a business plan and the
existing work product of two other programmers. Perhaps Zuckerberg had already
had a vision for Facebook and simply accelerated his schedule in order to get
it to market first; but if so, one wonders why he was wasting time on taking
meetings for programming jobs.

What does Lessig consider the twins should have done instead? Would he be on
their side if they had drafted a proper contract, NDAs, and stamped everything
they ever put on paper with the words 'Property of ConnectU, hands off'? Or is
it that he doesn't consider their idea sufficiently distinctive to be
protectable by the legal system? Because he never articulates quite what he
means, I'm left with the impression that Lessig considers the commons to
extend to any exchange of an incomplete or unrealized idea, without regard for
the context in which that exchange takes place. By this interpretation, the
notion of a 'gentleman's agreement' is obsolete, what you own is limited to
what you can control, and any lapse in total secrecy is your loss to bear.

Indeed, I saw this view expressed repeatedly during the fuss over the iPhone
prototype earlier this year. Many considered the finder of the device the new
owner, regardless of his legal obligations and his knowledge of exactly who
had lost it. The value the finder, and subsequently Gizmodo, sought to derive
from their possession of it stemmed from the very confidentiality and general
unavailability of such prototypes. But many considered possession to be fully
equivalent to ownership (on a moral if not a legal level), conferring the
right to exploit what one possessed to the fullest extent possible. Quite why
legal technicalities of a search warrant issued shortly afterwards should have
offended their sensibilities so greatly, I can't say - they certainly weren't
bothered by any statutory considerations, so it must have been to do with some
inexcusable lapse of style by the police.

If we are not bound to respect each other's property or confidence by anything
less than our full contractual agreement, does Lessig then see progress as the
outcome of an arms race between zero-sum competitors? Why should I not steal
his car if he steps out of it and leaves his keys in the ignition, and place
the blame upon 'the system' if Lessig summons a policeman to his aid? The
value of his car stems from its current configuration as a vehicle, and Lessig
is arguing that designs do not belong to anyone in particular. the materials
which make up the car - some steel, rubber and various kinds of plastic - are
mere commodities, and at most I have laid hands upon some junk which just
happens to be organized into the shape of a vehicle at present. If I drive it
away and wrap it around a tree, what has Lessig lost? With enough time and
ingenuity, he could reassemble the wreckage into a working automobile: others
have done no less, so why does he feel entitled to have his idea of a car
actualized at someone else's expense, just because it existed independently in
the recent past?

 _You don’t even have to possess Zuckerberg’s technical genius to develop your
own idea for the Internet today. Websites across the developing world deliver
high quality coding to complement the very best ideas from anywhere._

Unless, of course, they decide to launch against you as a competitor instead,
in which case you had best resign yourself to basking in the reflections of
their glory.

Given the midnight byline on the post, I cannot help wondering if this was
written with the assistance of a post-premiere cocktail. I hardly feel he
would ignore such gaping holes in any counter-argument.

~~~
kjksf
You're missing Lessig's central point: $65 million is a ridiculous amount to
pay for whatever Zuckerberg got out of Harvard twins and amounts to extortion
and abuse of legal system.

If we go by the movie, Zuckerberg and twins met at most a couple of days, they
described the general idea of the site (which, by that time, wasn't anything
original: it was My Space or Friendster except with exclusivity) and he agreed
to program the site. Except he didn't and instead created such a site, from
scratch, by himself, dodging the twins the whole time (which implies they had
no further contact except the initial meetings).

That might be an asshole move but I don't see where did twins contribute
anything worth remotely $65 million. If anything at all.

If you're under assumption that if you talk to me, describe an idea for a
website to me and I go ahead and implement a similar idea (with no help from
you) then you deserve any part of revenue for it, they you're very much
mistaken.

The reason we have NDAs, contracts and other sorts of legal tools is precisely
because the above scenario doesn't play the way you think it does and if you
want to protect your ideas, you can either use trade secrets (i.e. don't blab
about them) or get the other party to sign a contract that spells out his
rights wrt. to ideas you're planning to disclose.

It really is that simple and Winklevosses won legal lottery - there was no
merit in their claims.

~~~
anigbrowl
Nobody suggests they made $65m worth of contributions. They got that amount
because it was mutually agreed to reflect something like the value of what
they had initiated considered as if it were equity at launch, and adjusted to
reflect the capital gains they might have expected to enjoy from holding such
a slice of equity. You think $65 million is a ton of money, but given that
Facebook was valued at somewhere between $4 and $15 billion at the time, it's
peanuts - something in the vicinity of 2%, at most. But nobody would care if
it were expressed in percentage terms because it doesn't sound so unreasonable
now, does it?

I do not agree that it is extortion and abuse. They made a case that
Zuckerberg pulled, as you say, an 'asshole move'; and that he repeatedly
misled them into thinking that he was devoting all his technical efforts to
their mutual benefit, while they focused on other sorts of business
development. I don't know precisely what that involved, but I rather doubt
that just because they were not themselves programmers they must have spent
the entire period sitting on the couch doing nothing.

Yes, if you want legal peace of mind and defensible security, then the best
option is to have NDAs and watertight contracts all around. But if those are a
prerequisite for any kind of trust to exist, then our legal system would bear
a much greater resemblance to the code-based civil law systems which obtain in
most of Europe and South America. As things stand, we give substantial weight
to common law, with its emphasis on precedent and judicial independence.

You may dislike common law for its ambiguity and unpredictability - although I
suspect you would chafe under the mechanical inflexibility of the alternative
when you find yourself waiting a month or longer for the registration of your
business to be completed so that you can legally start harvesting people's
data for fun and profit. but either way, Zuckerberg started his empire in this
country, and if he paid attention in his classes on American government he
knew there might be some legal risks in what he was doing.

And when that turned out to be the case, he got over his egotistical reactions
and eventually settled for a marginal sum, like a smart person.

~~~
enjo
I find it fascinating that the people on HN, of ALL places, aren't more
sympathetic to that point. All of us that have built (or are building)
companies have brought a Zuckerberg into our confidence some point.

Hell, most recently _I_ was a Zuckerberg. My partner had an idea and the
foundations to pull it of. He just needed a partner (me) with the technical
chops to make it happen. I could have spent a few days picking his brain and
stolen everything I could for my own gain.

I didn't... and things have worked out really well for us.

For me Zuckerberg is a villian. I've never met the guy, but from what I can
tell he committed the most unforgivable act imaginable. He stole a vision, and
actively worked to string those who trusted him along as far as he could.
That's not something to celebrate, it's something to despise.

$65M seems fair to me. Hell it seems low. Fraud really does pay sometimes.

~~~
csallen
If the ConnectU team had been competently-run, the founders would have
realized that their idea was their biggest asset at the time (they had zero
execution), and kept it more closely-guarded. Instead, they blurted it out to
Zuck before he even agreed to work with him, while completely neglecting to
employ the use of NDAs, non-competes, or similar documents. I'm loathe to
defend a legal system so "random and inefficient" (as Lessig puts it) that it
would allow the ConnectU team to extract $65 million from Zuckerberg
regardless.

Was it unethical for Zuckerberg to take advantage of their ignorance? I don't
think so. He saw an idea he liked in the hands of a couple of people who
weren't implementing it correctly, so he did it himself. That describes about
half the startups that exist today.

Was it unethical for him to lie to the Winklevosses in order to delay their
progress as a company? Definitely. But at worst, it amounts to unethical
intellectual bullying of an incompetent and inferior competitor. Given that he
didn't break any laws, didn't steal any code, and didn't sign any contracts
(to my knowledge), I find the eventual $65million settlement hard to stomach.

~~~
anigbrowl
What is your source for this version of events?

~~~
csallen
What's different from this "version" than what you've heard elsewhere?

I've searched and found no mentions of NDAs/non-competes. The only contract
ever mentioned is an oral contract, which means they told him the idea, and
_then_ I he agreed to work on it. In addition, Zuck's subsequent deceiving
emails to ConnectU are well-documented.

My point is not to challenge the facts about what occurred and when. My point
is that the concept of "oral contract" is hugely vague: clearly Zuckerberg
didn't believe he had a legal obligation to complete their website. And in
this case, the ramifications ($65 million) of breaking such a vague agreement
were much too high.

~~~
anigbrowl
Your interpretation is not the only possible one, and fails to consider the
significance of the fraud involved. If it was a story of two business guys who
stole a pile of code and built a business I suspect you'd be demanding jail
time.

~~~
csallen
Of course I would, but only because code is tangible. The legality of stealing
tangible items/data is clear in everybody's minds.

However, an idea is NOT tangible, and in the absence of signed contracts it is
NOT clear that using an idea told you by someone else is illegal.

------
liuliu
I have a problem to understand how the non-dilute share works as described in
the movie. Personally, I was told that the construction is very hard since the
valuation changes each round.

