Winklevoss twins: Zuck on our salty nuts The Winklevoss twins are back in the limelight (well, sort of) by starring in a US telly advert for pistachios that sends up the brothers' legal fight with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. The twins' well-publicised claims that Zuckerberg stole the idea for Facebook from their Harvard network ConnectU bagged them a $65m …
Certainly, they're a strange choice for fronting an ad campaign. Whilst their name is instantly recognisable to those that have a web-tech interest (or possibly busines lawyers), for many they hold zero relevance and the implication of "idea stealing" will zip right over their heads. As an example, a few weeks back I watched the Social Network film with some friends - only three of the four males present thought the Facebook saga was interesting, but all the women lost interest inside of the first twenty minutes. Most audiences to this ad will probably not have a clue what the Winklevoss twins are on about. I suspect there is some link back to the Winklevoss business empire somewhere, they're not short of a penny or two.
Judgements don't usually get awarded (especially in the 10's of millions of dollars) for spurious claims.
Don't get me wrong I get it that these guys come off as a twin pair of pricks, but really it's Zuckerberg who is the real asshole here - He did steal their idea and then called his own users "F*&cking Idiots" for being willing to give up their personal information.
These twins appear to be hardworking athletes that came with an idea, and just want they feel was stolen from them.
Seriously the court case pretty much was open and shut that Zuckerberg not only stole the Facebook idea from them, but also was purposely sinking their own creation that he was being paid for, all the while under the guise of being the tinklevoss bros friends.
Stealing and knifing your friends in the back.... what f&$%cking twat!
Why oh why do these kids get so much ire, and Suckerberg is treated like Einstein or Edission of his generation? (Edisson actually may be apt comparison he paid other inventors and mostly claimed credit for shit he had nothing to do with)
> These twins appear to be hardworking athletes that came with an idea, and just want they feel was stolen from them.
Even they admitted that the idea came from Divya Narendra.
Anyway, there wasn't a judgement in the case. The judge ordered the two companies to mediation. The case went bad for the twins and they were very very lucky to get 65 million. Ever since, they've gone back to try and get more.
Zuckerberg was never their friend by the way. They hired him to do work. No denying from me that Zuck is a tosser though. Don't know him personally but some of those interviews he's done, he's hardly Richard Branson
These 2 really annoy me, and I'm not just basing this judgement off the Social Network film.
Nobody stole any ideas from them - they didn't have anything even close to the idea behind Facebook. The fact they got anywhere close to 65 million by trying to argue this is an absolute joke.
At the end of the day the person who goes and implements something and makes a success of it deserves to be rewarded. Whenever I hear people whining (and suing others) for "stealing" their ideas I just think, well maybe you should have got off your arse and implemented it before someone else did.
Understand nobody likes a whiner, but all accounts of this show suckerberg not only as stealing the idea, but purposely tanking their efforts at success, under the guise of being a friend nonetheless.
I mean really like Brin and Page didn't have ANYone working for them, when people you hire to implement your great idea STEAL it from you instead of doing the work you paid them for you (in the US at least) have the right to sue them. BELIEVE me no judge will just hand out $63 million for vague claims or hurt feelings. These guys PROVED in court that suckerberg STOLE didn't just steal their idea. he pretended to be working at implementing it and making it a reality, all the while while tanking their site and making his own competing site. hence the judgement that they clearly won when the FACTS were presented...
Okay that said they do look like a pair of muppets a bit
I disagree with you. I don't think Zuckerberg stole anything - the twins hired him to produce a site that had a resembelence to what became the first version of Facebook but he had loads of his own ideas that he incorporated into his own version.
The only reason the twins were annoyed was because Zuckerberg's site was hugely successful and they understood he could go on to make a lot of money. If he had come up with something that was rubbish and nobody used, they would have just laughed at him for investing money in a failed venture.
It all comes down to jealousy that he was succesful and they weren't, in my opinion. Also they should have done a damn lot more with protecting their "idea" if they were worried someone may copy it. But of course, nobody did.
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