
Twins’ Facebook Fight Rages On - donohoe
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/31/business/31twins.html?_r=1&src=twr
======
strlen
The fact that this travesty continues (and how it is portrayed in the media)
shows what society still thinks of as a proper place for geeks like
Zuckerberg[1]: to implement some business guy's vision. The message is loud
and clear: "you may be smart, you may go to the same schools as we do, but you
are an inferior being." Our skills are thought of as a commodity, that we can
implement a site like Craigslist, Amazon or Facebook (in its modern
incarnation) in a weekend: it's as if the idea is the hard part.

This applies not only to Zuckberg, but also to the employees at Facebook who
have been busy working nights and weekends building, scaling out and
monetizing the site. Apparently, however, society thinks nothing of a wealth
transfer from the workers to the privileged elite (i.e., the twins).

I'll be the first to say: even if the allegations are true, fuck these
jocks[1]: everybody and their mother had a "social network for X" idea; the
idea wasn't unique, turning it into an a product users love was.

[1] It's popular to portray Zuck as some PHP script kiddie, but that's not the
case. He's written a Winamp plugin in high school, for which Microsoft offered
him a $1mm bonus if he signed on as a full time employee (forgoing Harvard).
His initial technology choices may be disagreeable, but he's still one of us.

[2] <http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10016183-36.html>

~~~
alexgartrell

      Fuck these jocks
    

So maybe I'm being a little oversensitive here, but attitudes like this toward
athletes are total bullshit. I'm going to go out on an egotistical limb here
and say that I'm a pretty fucking competent coder, but before I was I was a
pretty decent Football player. Don't make this an "us vs. them" thing, because
that's a false dichotomy if I've ever heard one.

~~~
strlen
No, you're not oversensitive here. I am. I regret putting that comment in.
It's a visceral, emotional gut reaction. Nonetheless, I'll leave it there:
editing it out would be Orwellian.

However, there's an interesting point: they spent their time perfecting their
rowing skills to an olympic level, that's where their passion lays. It's
difficult to be an olympic rower and a top notch hacker at the same time: it's
one thing to dabble in both, it's another to master one.

I work out for at least an hour 5-6 days a week, but I'm not an athlete. The
hours I have to spend to become proficient at programming don't leave time for
equal amount of hours (10,000 according to Gladwell) to be spent on sport.
Winklevii made their choices, Zuck made his.

~~~
fingerprinter
Going on a HUGE side tangent here b/c working out, fitness and overall health
is a huge passion of mine...

people don't know how to workout....and people don't know what an 'athlete'
does when they workout. I've been around professional and collegiate athletes
for quite some time and I think most people would be amazed to see how little
they actually workout.

The basic thought the past 20 years was 'more is better' when it comes to the
body; more working out is better than less working out. What we are learning
and something good trainers and athletes have known for some time is that the
amount of working out takes a huge backseat to doing the right kind of working
out at the right intensity level.

It is more mythos created by the sports industry when we hear that someone is
'in the gym' 10 hours a day. This might be accurate, but the time they are
actually working out is minimal (or, rather, it should be if they value their
asset aka body).

Now, to someone like you working out 5-6 days a week for (guessing) an
hour...I guarantee that if I changed your routine and intensity levels you
would become an athlete you never dreamed you could be. I could probably do it
in literally half the time as well.

I'll leave you with this...which do you think is more effective as a workout:
60 minutes on the treadmill or elliptical or 10 minutes of sprinting intervals
@ 75 max effort? Did you know you can get one of the best and hardest workouts
of your life if you just did 5 minutes of Tabata style kettlebell swings (20
seconds swings, 10 sec break for 5 minutes)?

Knowing the body and being able to hack the body are so foreign to most folks
they literally have no idea what it means to workout like an athlete.

~~~
moultano
Have a good resource on "tabata style kettleball swings?"

~~~
fingerprinter
The technical name is 'Tabata Protocol' and google is your friend here. Also,
YouTube is awesome for finding good workouts if you know the right search
terms.

To get you started, this is a good video.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtgRcqaOqDo>

Just note that you should be going much, much harder (more intense) than she
is doing. Remember, 20 seconds all out, 10 seconds rest. You can also vary the
intensity by weight of KB and not just speed. I use a 53 pound KB for single
arm swings and a 70 pound for double arm swings (at the gym...don't have a 70
for the home yet).

If you have a tough time counting 20 seconds and 10 seconds, the GymBoss timer
(<http://www.gymboss.com/> ), available on Amazon is a great way to time.

Some quick articles on tabata: [http://www.thefitnessmonster.com/2010/02/hiit-
for-fat-loss-t...](http://www.thefitnessmonster.com/2010/02/hiit-for-fat-loss-
tabata-protocol.html)

[http://ezinearticles.com/?Kettlebell-Tabata-Workout---
Swings...](http://ezinearticles.com/?Kettlebell-Tabata-Workout---Swings-For-
Rapid-Fat-Loss&id=3772838)

You can do anything in a tabata fashion. For instance, you can sprint, you can
do an exercise bike if you have some issues running (I'm rehabbing an Achilles
tear so I stick to KB, swimming and some variants I'll talk about in a minute)
or anything you can do for 20 seconds.

I'll even make circuits for Tabata workouts. This is a great one that gets you
quite exhausted and will boost your metabolism sky high as well...

2-4 rounds, 20 seconds of each exercise in order, 10 second in between
exercises.

Pushup - you can do any type: traditional, military, diamond, plyo. Even vary
it up in the different rounds. KB swings - See previous Burpees -
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MGljX4bbps> Air Squats or Jack/Power Squats*
- <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1FpWEfJW1s> \-
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEwitPuU0Xg&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEwitPuU0Xg&feature=related)
Plank crunch (or variants) - <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31SbKgmHcmw>

Once done...take a 10 second break and start over again going for 2-4 total
rounds. If you do 2 rounds, that is 5 total minutes for working out. 4 Rounds
is 10 minutes. This is very, very tough (honestly) and sometimes I have a hard
time doing all 10 minutes w/ full intensity.

------
narrator
Moral of the story folks. Be very careful about people you go into business
with. If you smell a hint of "douche" or especially narcissism, just walk
away.

------
snprbob86
Now that I'm working on a proper startup -- raising money, building a product,
hiring a team, making deals, acquiring customers... I feel a renewed deep
respect for people who _actually make things_. No amount of hearing "the idea
isn't as important as the execution", no amount of startup culture
indoctrination can really prepare you for doing it yourself.

Building something that people want is just so much harder than anyone could
possibly imagine until they try it. I don't think any typical judge could
possibly understand. If they did, a case about "he stole the idea" would be
instantly thrown out with prejudice. The idea is so unbelievably
inconsequential in the scope of skill, determination, and heart needed to
succeed.

Even if Zuck mislead these guys into thinking he was building this exact
product for them and on their time, I don't think they are entitled to
anything. Even if the Harvard Connection was the most popular social network
and Zuckerberg was hired as a 10th engineer and left and build Facebook to
compete. I don't think they'd be entitled to a dime. Love him or hate him,
Zuckerberg built an incredible business with a stellar team in a remarkably
short time period. Luck was involved, but this was no accident.

------
edanm
It still amazes me how different my perception is on starting successful
businesses, versus most other people.

I mean, there's the whole "the idea is not the important part" slogan, which
is true to at least some degree, which seems completely lost on the twins.

And take this quote: _When asked if they could have turned ConnectU into a
site with hundreds of millions of users, like Mr. Zuckerberg did with
Facebook, the twins replied in unison, “Absolutely.”_

Seriously, have you ever heard anyone who would say that they could
_absolutely_ succeed with _any startup_? The optimistic chances of success for
any startup aren't huge, what makes them think they would absolutely succeed?
Moreover, they're not talking about the kind of success that YC is happy with,
or even the kind of success that VCs are happy with. They're talking about the
kind of success of a once-in-a-decade company.

Lastly, I've worked on my own startup for almost the past year. It's been a
year of attempts, false starts, "pivots", eventually throwing out some ideas
altogether and starting from new. From what I understand, after the Winkelvoss
twins approached Zuck, less than 2 months passed before he went and released
Facebook. 2 months, to me, seems like such a tiny, inconsequential amount of
time when you're talking about starting a startup.

Any way you look at it, from the facts as I understand them, this just seems
like 3 people who have no idea what they're talking about, trying to squeeze
money out of someone successful just because they can.

------
kylelibra
This is getting to the point of embarrassing. It is time to give it a rest.

------
naner
[http://viewtext.org/article?url=http://www.nytimes.com/2010/...](http://viewtext.org/article?url=http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/31/business/31twins.html)

------
bl4k
It seems you can't be successful, especially in tech/web, without a dozen
people hanging onto your coattails claiming that you stole the idea or that
you were lucky.

MySpace were written off as lucky spammers, Zuck a theif, Bill Gates stole MS-
DOS, etc. etc.

~~~
pyre
Bill Gates stole MS-DOS? So far as I know, he _bought_ DOS to license to IBM.
There's a difference between being a skillful hacker and being a shrewd
businessman. Claiming that someone isn't a skillful hacker doesn't mean they
are completely without brains/skills/etc.

MySpace were 'lucky' in that people latched on to their horrible interface
because it had features that they wanted (to put music, videos, media on their
'homepage'). People could have easily rejected the interface despite yearning
for the features.

Zuckerberg isn't necessarily a thief, but he certainly should have covered his
ass a lot better with contracts and such. Though, with the amount of money
that's on the line, there would be people coming out of the woodwork no matter
how airtight of a contract they had.

    
    
      > It seems you can't be successful, especially in tech/web,
    

It's the "I thought of that too, so where's my money" syndrome. "I thought of
The Clapper first! I should be the one making money!"

~~~
bl4k
I didn't say I agree with it - I said that is what you hear a lot of.

Zuck and Bill deserve absolute credit for their successes.

------
blantonl
It is pretty clear what is driving this - attorney's fees. The attorneys can
conjure up all kinds of (remote) scenarios for additional, potential,
settlements now that they had the taste of the previous settlement.

~~~
edanm
Their original attorneys were fired, not paid, and had to go to court to force
the Winkelvosses to pay them their attorney fees. The Winkelvosses withheld
the money due to their claims of their lawyer's incompetence.

------
smokey221
If Zuckerberg was a more likable guy like Leo Laporte or Kevin Rose I'd feel
sympathy for him. The Winklewosses might be tools but Zuckerberg is hardly
more sympathetic.

~~~
younata
Never met Zuck, but, I have far more respect for him than I do for the
Winklewosses.

