The US Court of Appeals has finally handed down the verdict denying the re-opening of the $65M settlement the Winklevoss twins had previously agreed on with Facebook.
If you have been living under a rock in the past two years, and do not live anywhere near a cinema – the Winklevoss twins are the ones who originally thought of the concept for Facebook. They subsequently hired Mark Zuckerberg to be the technical brain to orchestrate the ‘programming’ for the website. Short order is that Mark Zuckerberg took the idea, ran with it, launched it himself and thus Facebook was born.
The Winklevoss brothers therefore, finding themselves outwitted by the technical genius that gave life to their idea, sued Zuckerberg and after much discussion settled for a $65M payout. You’d probably say – for an idea, that is not a bad pay check.
However, the rebound is that Facebook became the biggest internet news since Google. Goldman Sachs for example wanted in on the Facebook phenomenon like the rest of the world does in some shape or form. Press releases quoting the availability of $1.5B in share placements in the US alone for Facebook for Goldman-Sachs clients must have really grated on the Winklevoss twins. Reading things like that must have gotten the wheels turning in their heads “$65M for OUR idea and this guy makes $*%@@!!!!B? Call the bloody lawyers!”
Listen, I come from advertising, which is an industry that lives and dies by ideas. We glorify the great ones and hand them lion trophies. The lot of them "most creative ones" get blindingly drunk at great parties in Cannes thrown for them annually. You might think it would naturally rankle me that Zuckerberg stole the idea from them but frankly – it is a big fat NO.
In fact, I salute Zuckerberg for having the balls to realize that while a great idea is a fantastic thing to start with, it takes hard work to make it happen. In this case, the starting idea for a website needs to be cracking but it takes a genius programmer to get it live.
Also in this case, this particular arena of technology is so dependent on programming skills – the ability of the programmer to design the structure to make a vague idea come to life in itself becomes a formidable if not THE essential component of the idea.
It is not for his programming skills though that made me go “Team Zuckerberg!” from day one. It was the fact that it was he who did the hard work to make it come to life. He was hired by the Winklevoss twins to do their programming after demonstrating his prowess with the success of “FaceMash” – a super successful viral which Zuckerberg programmed and launched in a few hours while drunk. Therein lies the difference. One Monkey Say (or in this case 2 monkeys), One Monkey Do. Who gets the banana?
The Winklevoss twins fatally believed that Zuckerberg would be content to be their hired gun. Were they naïve? Perhaps. The plausibility however, of purely operating on a ‘trust thing” since they were just young university students just doesn’t wash with me.
I believe the Winklevoss twins suffered from and continue to suffer a grandiose sense of entitlement – they’ve come up with the idea therefore that’s it. Let’s now hire people to go away and do it. That’s the first. Why they didn’t think of doing the coding and programming themselves for what was supposedly their moneymaking idea is beyond me. Even university students understand that ideas get stolen.
The second was that, once Zuckerberg launched Facebook and they saw that it was so similar to their idea - what did the boys do? Complain. Complain to the Harvard President. When they could have in fact gone out there, either hired an army of programmers or did it themselves to immediately launch a similar site to battle Facebook. Didn’t they ever hear of Google, Yahoo and Bing? Oh but no.
In the meantime, Zuckerberg’s Facebook was growing stronger, wider eventually becoming the behemoth that it is today.
After all the time that has passed, what have the twins done? THEY'VE SUED. Settled. Appealed. Re-appealed. SUING YET AGAIN.
Have they gotten any work done on perhaps getting a better version of their idea on the market, which not an unlikely suggestion since supposedly they thought of it in the first place? A BIG FAT NO.
Their attempt to even re-challenge the settlement they agreed on further highlights how entitled these twins seem to be. “We thought about it, we’re entitled to ask for more money.” Please boys. If you spent less time rowing and posing, I would be more sympathetic.
How about taking that $65M and doing something to beat Zuckerberg on the head?
The loss of the Winklevoss brothers is nothing more than proof of the old world truths. That the one who seizes the opportunity is the one who will win. Two monkeys just wanted to stand there and talk about it. The other monkey just went away and did it. Guess who got the banana?
To say it more kindly, this is a lesson about never expecting others to work at making your dreams come true. Now - how about working harder and doing the work yourselves Winklevoss boys?
Til then – ‘Go Team Zuckerberg!’
