I’ll put this to rest but I thought I’d give one last piece of insight into the case between Mark Zuckerberg and ConnectU. After discussing the story with a number of people I’ve realized that perhaps this wasn’t as clear of a case as the media has portrayed. Andrew Feinberg gives an interesting perspective on the story. The alternative view point is that Zuckerberg was tempted by two rich athletes who were going to give him ownership for developing a social network. They told him the idea and he eagerly accepted as a less experienced individual would do given the circumstances.
After further thought Mark Zuckerberg realized that not much value was being provided by the Winklevoss brothers who were busy rowing while he was spending Thanksgiving break coding the beginning of the ConnectU social network and what would ultimately become The Facebook. Awesome deal! Pretty much they had an idea but didn’t have the ability to execute on it. In turn they went to somebody that could do all of the execution and they would try to take credit.
Once Facebook became successful, the Winklevoss brothers decided to file suit. Unfortunately for Mark, he was probably receiving pressure from his investors to simply settle and get rid of the suit. The end result was settlement. If we see the story from this alternative perspective, the “bad guys” ended up winning. While I can’t accurately judge what took place since I didn’t have a first-hand experience, it doesn’t make much sense to pass judgement on either party.
I figured it did make sense to provide another perspective though since much of the media as portrayed it as an aggressive and offensive maneuver by Zuckerberg when in reality he may have just been protecting himself.
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Correct
Comment by Jonathan Kleiman — April 8, 2008 @ 12:13 pm
Correct
Comment by Jonathan Kleiman — April 8, 2008 @ 4:13 pm
Feinberg's analysis appears to be enlightening, but if there was really no contractual obligation to the brothers then Facebook would not be settling.I believe Feinberg overlooks that a verbal agreement (which can be legally binding) was in place. It may be true that the brothers were too tied up in their rowing to ever meet their end of the deal, but that has no bearing on the case. It certainly wouldn't have been fair, but fair != legal.Facebook has not much goodwill at stake via this case and could have afforded to take this all the way to court. A settlement here, IMHO, appears to imply that the case wasn't as completely bogus as Feinberg suggests.
Comment by Danny — April 9, 2008 @ 4:48 am
Feinberg's analysis appears to be enlightening, but if there was really no contractual obligation to the brothers then Facebook would not be settling.
I believe Feinberg overlooks that a verbal agreement (which can be legally binding) was in place. It may be true that the brothers were too tied up in their rowing to ever meet their end of the deal, but that has no bearing on the case. It certainly wouldn't have been fair, but fair != legal.
Facebook has not much goodwill at stake via this case and could have afforded to take this all the way to court. A settlement here, IMHO, appears to imply that the case wasn't as completely bogus as Feinberg suggests.
Comment by Danny — April 9, 2008 @ 5:48 am