
Will Facebook ever be rid of the Winklevoss twins? - shawndumas
http://venturebeat.com/2011/01/13/facebook-appeal-winklevoss/
======
krschultz
I'm a big Mark Zuckerberg hater. He seemingly screwed over a couple people
along the way taking the idea and running with it (breach of contract,
unethical etc, even if you are doing all the work). But at this point Facebook
has made all of those people incredibly wealthy through settlements of cash
and even people owning sharers. Those people will only get more wealthy when
they IPO.

Do they really think they could have made more money if Mark hadn't walked out
on them and run built it all himself? You have $150 million dollars now, could
you have made a billion dollar business? The idea behind Facebook was not all
that unique. Certainly it was bad that he walked out on them and stole it, but
would they have built a $50 billion company?

Just based on how they have acted since getting the settlement, I think not.
You have $150 million now, that is enough money to fund 15 new ventures
without ever going to a VC.

If these guys thought they could make more money than Zuckerburg without him,
then DO IT. You can try 15 times before you are broke. That is a luxury almost
none of the rest of us have.

Instead by constantly going back to the golden goose and trying to get money
they are proving their inability to build a business. Facebook was a lottery
win for them and they have no ability to do better. They are probably better
off today with Mark having walked out on them ,than if they all stayed in it
together and it failed and they owned a larger percent of 0.

~~~
geebee
While it's difficult to ever really know what's going on in someone else's
head, I actually do believe that the Winklevosses are pursuing this out of a
sense of outrage and justice, not money. It's the motivation that makes the
most sense to me.

That said (and again within my very limited knowledge of all this), I think
that a $60+ million settlement is an incredibly good outcome for the
winklevosses. I think that if they had found a different programmer, they
would have produced yet another social networking site that went nowhere.
Selling it for a tenth of their facebook settlement would have been an
extraordinary outcome.

Why? Because startups run by non-programming business guys who hire a string
of programmers who eventually quit and leave almost never succeed on
facebook's level. Business guys like the winks greatly exaggerate the value of
"an idea" and greatly underestimate way an idea can evolve into a new idea
through implementation. They are almost always left in the dust.

Let me put it this way - if I went to a brilliant programmer with an "idea" -
even one I had done quite a bit of implementation on, and he turned it into a
multi-billion dollar company and offered me $60 million, I'd consider that a
really good deal. Of course, that's not how this went down - the winks feel
screwed because as far as I understand it, they kind of were. I'm basing this
on the movie, so what can I say, no idea if this is true, but if I went to a
programmer and he said, "yeah, I'm working on your site, I'll get back to you"
over and over for a month, and at the end of the month he had launched a site
that directly competes with the idea I thought he was working on for me, and
then he told me bluntly and perhaps arrogantly that my idea was stupid and his
was much better, and then used his advantage to beat me to every market, I'd
be furious. I might be so furious that I'd be blinded to the truth, which is
that I wouldn't have succeeded anyway.

I think the outcomes for the winks were

1) screwed and paid 60 mil 2) not screwed and paid probably nothing, maybe a
small buyout nowhere near 60 mil.

~~~
emmett
"I'm basing this on the movie".

Sigh. You _know_ the movie isn't accurate. It's good story, it's not reality.
Why would you make any comment on the motives of the players or the justice of
the case using the movie as your primary source? The movie is basically
historical fiction that happens to be set in the present day.

I knew that when the movie came out everyone would begin assuming that it was
the true story of Facebook (despite protestations like "I have no idea if it's
true"), but I'm literally seeing it in action here and it makes me sad.

You don't get to start from the movie as a "good guess" as to what happens.
You don't get to use the movie as evidence at all.

~~~
geebee
I agree. I can't use the movie as evidence. Even the things presented as facts
(for instance, I read an article that said the dilution of shares wasn't as
bad as the movie presented).

That said, when someone (like me) makes a false statement based on the movie,
you should refute the statement itself. For instance, did Zuckerberg agree to
work on the site, and give the winklevosses the runaround for a month?

~~~
geebee
just as another aside - I've made a similar objection to the one you pointed
out here. When Oliver Stone made the movie about the JSF assassination, he
created some footage that looked like the "real" footage and presented it in
the movie, with full acknowledgements that it was just a version of reality.
While I'm making no assertions about the truth of Stone's point of view, the
controversy made me aware of how stories can become so powerful that they
become reality even in the minds of people who are aware that they are
stories...

this is just another way of saying - I do appreciate your comment, and it's
reminded me of the danger of thinking I'm always in control of my own ability
to consciously separate fiction from reality... "seeing it", in spite of
intellectual awareness that it's "just a story", has a powerful effect on the
mind.

------
grellas
_Will Facebook ever be rid of the Winklevoss twins?"_

Yes, on the legal front, this is likely to end sooner rather than later at
this point, as the appeal by the twins from the lower court judgment ordering
that the settlement be enforced has _not_ been well received by the panel
hearing the appeal (see link, with my associated comment, from a couple of
days ago to a story analyzing the judges' comments during the oral argument:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2096370>).

I will restate here from my prior comment what the stakes are on this appeal:

"In my view, the last major legal cloud that hangs over Facebook is the appeal
by ConnectU and the Winklevoss brothers of a federal court decision upholding
a settlement between them and FB of their claims that Mr. Zuckerberg had
allegedly stolen their ideas to form the company. With that settlement in
place, those parties received what many considered a windfall ($20M cash and
1.2 shares of FB stock, originally valued at $45M and now estimated to be
worth $150M). Should it be set aside, however, the settlement value of such
claims today would be astronomical. Why? Because these claims (unlike those of
Mr. Ceglia, who filed a claim nearly seven years after the fact claiming an
"84% stake in Facebook") were timely brought and have overhung every round of
financing that FB has done from the beginning. In other words, existing FB
shareholders have at all times been aware, in making their investment, of the
risk that they could potentially lose everything should ConnectU prevail in
its claims to own the FB IP. That is a devastating outcome for FB
shareholders, of course, but the claimants here (unlike Mr. Ceglia) cannot be
accused of laches or foot-dragging in ways that make the timing of their
claims inequitable and therefore unenforceable. Thus, should they get this
settlement set aside, FB would be faced with years of future litigation during
which a serious question mark would hang over the entire value of its company.
Hence, no IPO; hence, a far higher cost of any financing down the road. The
stakes are high in this case."

Money, then, would appear to be the main driving element here. By playing with
house money, the twins stand to gain by continuing to leverage their legal
threats. That is why this whole thing has taken on a Terminator-like quality.
In the end, they will either run out of legal leverage or they will be paid
off. Time will tell on which it will be but I doubt that they will back off
gracefully regardless of any windfall they might have already received.

------
kevinholesh
"I suspect that what want they’re really pursuing is recognition, either from
Facebook or in court, that they were the brains behind Facebook."

In my mind, these twins will never be the reason why Facebook was successful,
no matter what some court decides. The value of a new website is not the idea
behind it, it is the hard work of adding some kind of value and the tough task
of getting people to use it. The idea that Connect U could be a "website that
connects college friends" is not what made Facebook successful; it was the
hard work of Zuckerberg and those around him.

I hope the twins are granted their chance to appeal and lose everything. I
also hope they're never mentioned by any news story again.

------
jeremymims
ConnectU was a full-fledged site at one point. It wasn't vaporware.

In fact, a feature they created called Social Butterfly to allow facebook
users to export their data caused facebook to sue them. And it resulted in
facebook storing e-mail addresses as images for many years to prevent anyone
from easily switching services.

It's all well and good to say that we'll never know what ConnectU might have
been. But we do know that the principle person expected to build a big piece
of it went on to execute on that idea almost perfectly.

Are they entitled to anything? None of us really know for sure since we only
have small pieces of hearsay. The courts will decide.

~~~
stanleydrew
This is really interesting. Being only tangentially aware of the entire
Facebook saga (I haven't even seen the movie yet) I had thought the
Winklevosses were just guys with an idea. I don't know where I got that
impression though.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ConnectU>

~~~
dstein
ConnectU was launched after Facebook. Their original idea, as explained in the
movie is that "Harvard Connection" was a dating site for Harvard students.

~~~
jeremymims
The movie portrays this (and many other things) inaccurately.

------
biggitybones
I love the inherent fact that they're essentially making a more solid and
lucrative "exit" on an idea they probably only discussed at length and put no
actual work into. Realistically they probably make out better from this (all
things like time, effort etc considered) than if Zuckerberg never does
Facebook.

I take that $20 mil in cash and $150 mil in stock, and if it's really not
about the money like they say, I use it to be an angel investor or start other
companies. This whole thing is getting tiresome.

~~~
hubb
like several people have mentioned already, these guys actually did build a
product. i wont speculate on what they're entitled to, but claiming all they
did was 'discussed at length' some concept is factually incorrect.

not sure why you're being up-voted -- is there something i'm missing?

~~~
biggitybones
You're right - probably shouldn't have dismissed it as just being in the idea
stage.

I still stand behind the other point though - the assumption behind their
lawsuit is that they would have been able to do what Zuckerberg did - which is
pure speculation. I'm of the opinion that their legal troubles and outcome end
up making them substantially more than their idea would have anyway. So walk
away with a boat load of money, lesson learned, and get your name behind some
positive press instead of negative.

------
trustfundbaby
I think this Social Network quote from Zuckerberg sums them up perfectly.

"They're suing me because for the first time in their lives, things didn't
work out the way they were supposed to for them"

They need to let it go.

------
jswinghammer
So if Facebook failed tomorrow and lost all the investment put into it so far
would they be on the hook because their idea caused all that capital to be
wasted?

------
JabavuAdams
Interesting -- I don't understand. These guys live in a very different reality
from me.

When I think of what I could build / research with $5-10M cash in the bank...

~~~
JanezStupar
Well they were probably born with a golden spoon in their mouthes...

~~~
JabavuAdams
This has been on my mind recently.

If I meet my financial goals, how do I prevent my child from turning into a
helpless person who just couldn't possibly live on less than she was
accustomed to, growing up?

I didn't really want for anything as a kid, but my parents weren't
extravagant. Nevertheless, it did set a kind of baseline for me.

The problem is once you scale up, it's very hard to scale back down. I'm
shocked by people who are struggling to live on $200 K+, but I suppose,
perversely, it makes sense given what they've become accustomed to.

~~~
JanezStupar
Give them enough that they can start anything but can't do nothing.

Human being is meant to work hard, play hard and love hard to be happy. I have
same thoughts - if I make what I've set out to do, how do I prevent spoiling
my children. One answer would be to raise them in an ascetic fashion - short
on consumer goods and long on interesting people and experiences.

~~~
JabavuAdams
I agree with these suggestions, but there's another huge component to the
problem -- peer group.

If all your peers are going on expensive vacations, to expensive restaurants
etc, and you're not going then you can't really hang out with them.

I.e. there're both perceived and real costs-of-entry to certain circles. As an
independent-minded adult, this is easier to resist, but for a school-age kid
it could be overwhelming.

~~~
JanezStupar
You can very much influence that. If you're a contrarian as you appear to be -
don't send your kids to school where dominant culture is one you don't want
them to belong to. You can still send them to a public school where
backgrounds are varied. Coupled with informed perspective from an open minded
parent that kind of experience is probably quite powerful in shaping a young
mind. You could go a step further and home school them yourself - in that way
you can completely control their socialization. Just beware that human
psychology is extremely complex and the results will probably differ from
expected in _any_ case.

I find it odd that people pile fortunes for their kids while claiming that
they don't have time to teach them and spend time with them. When in reality
your kids the your biggest insurance and investment of your life. What is a
point of working whole day so you can pay another person to raise your kid?
Who's kid are you raising then anyway?

~~~
JabavuAdams
> What is a point of working whole day so you can pay another person to raise
> your kid? Who's kid are you raising then anyway?

Careful not to over-generalize. It's quite possible to be an involved parent,
while still sending your kid to daycare etc.

I'm not sure whether you've raised kids, but one thing about babies / toddlers
is that in certain phases, they're absolutely relentless. You literally cannot
take a 5 min break for 12 hours or so. That was a surprise to me.

EDIT > Except when they're asleep.

I do have similar feelings about nannies, though. Im sure there are great
nannies out there, but what I typically see are glassy-eyed toddlers being
wheeled around by nannies who are chatting on the cell phone. The kids get
affection, but very little learning interaction.

That can't compare with the kind of high-bandwidth learning a curious child
can have with an involved parent and mentor.

For a famous example, consider the special relationship that Feynman had with
his father.

------
lkrubner
I would be extremely embarrassed if I had to go through life telling people:
"I had one good idea back in 2003, but I had some trouble with the programmer
who I never paid, and I could not recover from that, so I have now spent my
whole life making a living by suing my former programmer. I've yet to have
another good idea, or do anything else interesting with my life."

~~~
hunterjrj
"...or do anything else interesting with my life."

Except for this tiny competition they took part in one time. Nothing major. I
think they call it the "Olympics" or something like that.

<http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyler_Winklevoss>

------
dansingerman
If they had invented Facebook they would have invented Facebook.

~~~
chopsueyar
If Facebook had invented Facebook, they would not have bought $40 million of
patents from Friendster.

~~~
DanI-S
I don't think the Facebook concept is really something that is 'invented', per
se. It is one of those kind of ideas that will emerge spontaneously at a
certain point in the technological timeline, as the natural progression of
things. It was Facebook's execution (as a product and a business) which raised
it above the many similar services that appeared simultaneously.

~~~
chopsueyar
Obviously Facebook believed something was 'invented', as Facebook bought
patents from Friendster, and wanted to ensure Facebook would not have to
license the Friendster patents they were violating.

In your same manner of reasoning, h.264 was not invented, it simply emerged
spontaneously at a certain point of the technological timeline, as the natural
progression of things.

I would argue it was facebook's reliance on open-source software and existing
Friendster techniques (THAT WERE PATENTED BY FRIENDSTER), that allowed
Facebook to succeed.

~~~
DanI-S
I mentioned the Facebook _concept_. It was obviously a concept that occurred
pretty much simultaneously to a whole bunch of people across the world. The
same is true for h.264; it's a system for compressing video that is convenient
for 21st century media. There are many, many variations on that same concept.

It's the concept of 'multiple independent discovery' -
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery>. Just because somebody got
around to patenting a concept first doesn't mean that many others didn't think
of it at the same time.

You probably know how it is - many people have the seed of an idea, several
will take it further than that, a handful might get to the stage of
implementation - but only a couple will make it to the point of success.

~~~
chopsueyar
So the h.264 codec _was obviously a concept that occurred pretty much
simultaneously to a whole bunch of people across the world_?

 _Just because somebody got around to patenting a concept first doesn't mean
that many others didn't think of it at the same time._

Correct, however, the party that owns the patent, decides who can and cannot
implement that concept in real life.

------
DanielBMarkham
Like the author says, these guys want the impossible: they want everybody to
acknowledge that they were the genius behind Facebook.

Lawyers are very good for telling clients what they want to hear, and for
taking their money in battles to "do what's right".

If these guys had any sense, they'd bail out of the case, fire the lawyers,
and write a book about how totally awesome they are. Hell, pay ten million to
have it promoted. Then spend the rest of their lives trying to recapture the
magic or sitting on a beach with drinks with little umbrellas in them,
whatever their choice.

I don't think they'll do that, though. There's a lot of pride and ego involved
here.

~~~
notahacker
I think it's also a case of wanting to "get back" at Zuckerberg for what they
see as a betrayal. Being born extremely rich and not having a multi-billion
dollar corporation to run gives you a lot of scope to waste your enemies' time
and money.

------
dstein
I really hope Facebook doesn't settle this time. I want to see this go to
court and watch these guys lose the entire fortune that was dropped in their
laps. It would be great if this lawsuit establishes in court, once and for
all, that ideas are worth $0 and do not entitle current or former employers to
anything. As far as I understand Mark Zuckerberg wasn't even an employee of
the Winklevoss' which makes the whole thing a joke.

------
mhb
Their new idea: _Cameron helped to start Guestofaguest.com, a Web site that
offers information about “people, places and parties” in New York, Los Angeles
and the Hamptons._

Source:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/31/business/31twins.html?page...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/31/business/31twins.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&sq=winklevoss&st=cse&scp=4)

~~~
acangiano
Good god, what a terrible name.

------
chmike
One lesson I learn from this is to keep the way as clear as possible regarding
intellectual and industrial property. A patent, when possible, might help to
clear such type of issue.

Though I agree that the execution is as important as the initial idea, if not
more. There is also luck in play here by the coincidence to start this project
with exclusive access to high ranked universities inducing an outstanding
attraction. It is not sure that this was part of the idea and strategy
proposed by the twins.

------
kno
I'm afraid this brothers may lose all their new found money in legal fees.
They signed the settlement, they should get over it. Take the money and get a
life, hack something we want to use!

------
VladRussian
this is why stealing is bad. Compare with B.Gates for example who bought the
DOS for 50K instead of stealing it.

------
EGreg
If they are outraged that Mark executed the idea instead of them, they they
are implying that they're capable of starting a website like facebook and
making it super-popular, like facebook.

Why don't they just take the money they won and do that with some other idea?
There is plenty of stuff to do, as we all know on this board. It would look
much better to everyone if they showed what they are capable of. Eduardo
Saverin is funding some pretty interesting ventures. Otherwise it looks like
they're admitting this was their one and only big idea.

------
ot
Did anyone care about the Winklevoss twins before the movie?

~~~
weel
As far as I can tell, yes. In particular, the people being sued by them
presumably cared quite a bit.

~~~
ot
Of course they did, I was just asking about the rest of the world. The first
settlement was in 2008, but the huge spike here
[http://www.google.com/trends?q=winklevoss&ctab=0&geo...](http://www.google.com/trends?q=winklevoss&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0)
coincides with the release of the movie.

------
acconrad
They are real-life troll faces.

------
franze
is there a venturebeat.com upvote campaign? i can't believe that they show up
so often on the front page......

