Did Mark Zuckerberg Steal the Code for Facebook?
Posted by Nick O'Neill on November 28th, 2007 11:45 AMThe battle between Facebook and ConnectU has been raging since the beginning of Facebook but only in the past year or so did the battle enter the courtroom. A new article that’s been written for the magazine 02138 has brought to light more details about the ongoing battle between Facebook and ConnectU. The details paint a new picture of Mark Zuckerberg. As Matt Marshall points out, the article brings to light conflicting statements by Mark Zuckerberg.
Last year Mark Zuckerberg was quoted as saying “There is really good documentation of this: our code base versus theirs.” In the 02318 article it appears that most of the original Facebook code has since disappeared. The story of ConnectU and Facebook is one filled with numerous conflicts among the early participants. Additionally, the article does a great job at making it sound as though Zuckerberg obviously stole the idea. Ideas are a dime a dozen though in the technology world and execution is 99 percent.
In addition to ConnectU, Zuckerberg had conversations with Aaron Greenspan, another Harvard student, about yet another Harvard social network called houseSYSTEM. Ultimately, none of the people that Zuckerberg had spoken with have anything on paper though. Sucks to be them! It also appears as though Facebook was the best designed social network among the many being developed at Harvard at the time.
Mark Zuckerberg simply meshed the ideas of the many people he was speaking with and was successful in the execution. While the 02138 article makes Zuckerberg sound like a snake, let’s be honest, competition can get ugly. So whether or not Zuckerberg stole ideas from other people he was the one that wrote the code. If you aren’t a programmer in an early stage web startup, protecting an idea can be extremely challenging. The lesson learned here: get everything on paper.
My bet is that Mark Zuckerberg reused some of the code that he used for ConnectU. Most programmers do it. How much code was really reused though? I don’t think we’ll ever know. Do you think Mark Zuckerberg stole code from ConnectU?
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November 28th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
I think you’re right, that he did reuse some of the code that was given to him by the ConnectU guys with the understanding that he would build ConnectU-not Facebook. My guess is that the original fb code, were it made available by Mark, would show this to be true-thus the disappearing act.
Hopefully, FB users can combine this new article, the ensuing litigation, AND what they know about Beacon, and FB’s miss use of user data to come to the conclusion that the leader of FB may not be on the up and up, thus, FB itself may not be either.
November 28th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
I think you’re right, that he did reuse some of the code that was given to him by the ConnectU guys with the understanding that he would build ConnectU-not Facebook. My guess is that the original fb code, were it made available by Mark, would show this to be true-thus the disappearing act.
Hopefully, FB users can combine this new article, the ensuing litigation, AND what they know about Beacon, and FB’s miss use of user data to come to the conclusion that the leader of FB may not be on the up and up, thus, FB itself may not be either.
November 28th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
The picture from the article tells the story:
http://www.02138mag.com/asset/1065.jpg
These are the guys suing Zuckerberg. Ivy League competitve rowers who can’t/won’t write code.
Put yourself in Mark’s shoes. You’re a geeky kid who learned to code, maybe reads Slashdot and are looking to do something cool on the web. These jocks notice a thing you made and say they want your help with their company. You get excited and agree.
You’ve spent lots of time on the web and have developed a very good sense of what a good website is, and as you look over their idea, you realize that it is a start, but that you could do better. You wouldn’t use the site they drew up, but with some tweaks and a good UI, it has potential.
What do you do? Maybe you could go back to them and tell them how it could be done right.
Maybe you feel like they don’t have the touch and you do, so you don’t feel any obligation to fix their project, and instead opt to make your own.
Maybe they’re arrogant pricks who wouldn’t listen to you, and your sense of things is that if they don’t know how to code, tough shit for them. I have no idea of course, but a few things jump out:
They’re ivy league jocks supported by their dad.
They sunk $800,000 into their project through a web development firm (wow! where’d they get that? Why didn’t they do that to start with? Somehow I doubt Zuckerberg would have done this)
If this were a movie, they look the part of the guy that has everything, has no trouble getting laid, and gives Zuck a swirlie.
None of that proves anything but it does kind of fit an image, no?
November 28th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
The picture from the article tells the story:
http://www.02138mag.com/asset/1065.jpg
These are the guys suing Zuckerberg. Ivy League competitve rowers who can’t/won’t write code.
Put yourself in Mark’s shoes. You’re a geeky kid who learned to code, maybe reads Slashdot and are looking to do something cool on the web. These jocks notice a thing you made and say they want your help with their company. You get excited and agree.
You’ve spent lots of time on the web and have developed a very good sense of what a good website is, and as you look over their idea, you realize that it is a start, but that you could do better. You wouldn’t use the site they drew up, but with some tweaks and a good UI, it has potential.
What do you do? Maybe you could go back to them and tell them how it could be done right.
Maybe you feel like they don’t have the touch and you do, so you don’t feel any obligation to fix their project, and instead opt to make your own.
Maybe they’re arrogant pricks who wouldn’t listen to you, and your sense of things is that if they don’t know how to code, tough shit for them. I have no idea of course, but a few things jump out:
They’re ivy league jocks supported by their dad.
They sunk $800,000 into their project through a web development firm (wow! where’d they get that? Why didn’t they do that to start with? Somehow I doubt Zuckerberg would have done this)
If this were a movie, they look the part of the guy that has everything, has no trouble getting laid, and gives Zuck a swirlie.
None of that proves anything but it does kind of fit an image, no?
November 29th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
I agree, we are not talking about internal espionage, we are talking execution of an idea. If these guys had such a great product, plan, etc. then whey don’t we hear there names everywhere?
Troy
November 29th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
I agree, we are not talking about internal espionage, we are talking execution of an idea. If these guys had such a great product, plan, etc. then whey don’t we hear there names everywhere?
Troy
November 29th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
[...] I covered an article in 02318 magazine that exposed more information about the ConnectU vs. Facebook legal [...]
April 7th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Guys, whatever it is but this guy Mark did wrong thing by stealing the code and concept of the guys who trusted him with their pet project. As many guys like facebook today, even i do like it but that does not make what Mark did right. Disappearing of a site’s initial codebase is not possible unless its done intentionally. Wherever he initially hosted the site facebook, those hosting providers make daily/weekly backups of your complete code. the owner himself(Mark) keeps backups, especially if you are such an expert like Mark.
The guys supporting him, just think, what if it happened with you? You have an idea, you wrote some code and trusted a fellow student at your university with your code and full plan, and he steals everything from you, not just your idea, but your initial code too.
I know ideas are worth a dime and execution/coding is most important. but he did steal the code too not just the plan and idea.
All the following are just a few of all the things which proves that he did steal not only the idea but the code too.
1) disappearing of facebook’s initial code.
2) facebook agreeing to pay connectU.com to settle the lawsuit.
3) connectu’s claim against facebook from the very begining of facebook.
4) Mark’s working on ConnectU before starting coding on facebook
April 7th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Guys, whatever it is but this guy Mark did wrong thing by stealing the code and concept of the guys who trusted him with their pet project. As many guys like facebook today, even i do like it but that does not make what Mark did right. Disappearing of a site’s initial codebase is not possible unless its done intentionally. Wherever he initially hosted the site facebook, those hosting providers make daily/weekly backups of your complete code. the owner himself(Mark) keeps backups, especially if you are such an expert like Mark.
The guys supporting him, just think, what if it happened with you? You have an idea, you wrote some code and trusted a fellow student at your university with your code and full plan, and he steals everything from you, not just your idea, but your initial code too.
I know ideas are worth a dime and execution/coding is most important. but he did steal the code too not just the plan and idea.
All the following are just a few of all the things which proves that he did steal not only the idea but the code too.
1) disappearing of facebook’s initial code.
2) facebook agreeing to pay connectU.com to settle the lawsuit.
3) connectu’s claim against facebook from the very begining of facebook.
4) Mark’s working on ConnectU before starting coding on facebook
November 6th, 2008 at 5:03 am
John, you are an absolute moron. You obviously have no working knowledge of the legal system by saying things like this:
“All the following are just a few of all the things which proves that he did steal not only the idea but the code too.
1) disappearing of facebook’s initial code.
2) facebook agreeing to pay connectU.com to settle the lawsuit.
3) connectu’s claim against facebook from the very begining of facebook.
4) Mark’s working on ConnectU before starting coding on facebook”
1) I’m a DR engineer, and I agree with your comments about the source code just “disappearing” - it does seem very fishy but it does not PROVE anything.
2) Facebook probably offered to settle because they want to keep the negative publicity to a minimum. The squeaky bolt gets the oil.
3) How do you know when ConnectU started complaining about Mark stealing their source code? Were you there when the guys from ConnectU called Mark asking about where their stuff was? I doubt it. Facebook started LONG before you joined up, so the actual beginning of Facebook and when you joined aren’t exactly the same time. I can remember having to request my college be added to the list of schools so I could join the “network”… and I didn’t go to a small school in the middle of nowhere.
4) Just because I work on something doesn’t mean I automatically am responsible for the outcome. Not to mention, the whole spirit of capitalism (you know, what started this country) says that if you have a better product or service that you have every right to open a business similar to another. If your product or service is truly better than people will naturally give you their business. People who try to keep others from mimicking their business and corner the market obviously have no faith in the product or service.
Only a handful of people truly know what happened between the two companies, and it will stay that way. My personal thought is that Mark did not steal the source code from ConnectU. I’m sure that he did improve on ideas from others, but that’s how most of the best inventions are made. Take the washing machine for example - people have been washing clothes since this country was started. Someone got the great idea to make a machine to do it for you, does that mean that the person who invented the washing machine should be in trouble because other people had the idea to wash clothes before he came along? No, that’s absurd and so is the nonsense between Facebook and ConnectU. He was probably helping them, got some great ideas from them and decided to run with it. I don’t blame him one bit. As far as the disappearing source code goes, I can see how he might have wanted that to get “lost” just prior to launching Facebook. It was ConnectU’s fault for not having secure, redundant backups. Once data is lost you can point the finger all you want, but the trick is making sure it never truly gets lost.