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Court Rejects Winklevoss Twins' Facebook Appeal
angry tapir writes "A US federal appeals court has denied a request by the Winklevoss twins to release them from their settlement with Facebook over their allegations that Mark Zuckerberg improperly appropriated their idea for the social networking site. Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, along with another Harvard classmate, agreed to the settlement in 2008 but the twins later asked a district court to let them back out, saying they were misled by Facebook about the value of the company's shares they received as part of the deal. On Monday, a three-judge appeals court panel sided with the lower court, noting that the Winklevoss twins have actually fared quite well since the settlement was hammered out because the value of Facebook, pegged recently at around $50 billion, means that their shares have more than tripled in value."
ITT: Commenters who have seen The Social Network and, accordingly, are now experts on the matter.
""The Winklevosses are not the first parties bested by a competitor who then seek to gain through litigation what they were unable to achieve in the marketplace."
I wish judiciary was that clear and just in other cases, but this comment made my day.
On the other hand, as far as anyone can tell, they did come up with the idea, and they did have an agreement with Zuckerberg that he would implement it. Now, this business with trying to renegotiate their settlement is another matter, but I can certainly think of greedier people.
Palm trees and 8
And if you look up weasel, you'll see Zuckerberg. It's irrelevant if they're greedy. If they were lied to, and screwed that's still bad business. If they really don't have a case, as the appeals court suggests, then too bad so sad.
But being slimy, greedy, or even just a bad person doesn't make you wrong. Signing a bad agreement does.
Speaking of greed, the way that Zuckerberg is reputed to have treated Eduardo, his partner, and the one who put up all the initial investment money for Facebook is worse than the situation with the W twins.
He is reputed to have taken Eduardo's 30-some percent share down to 0 or so by issuing new stock to venture capitalists while keeping his and Sean Parker's percentages stable.
One phrase for dealing with startups: "non-dilutable shares"
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
Full opinion, from the 9th Circuit, here: http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2011/04/11/08-16745.pdf.
No statement is true, not even this one.
How could he be a saint? ginger's have no soul's
It's like the mind going AWOL, it's there somewhere
for people that didn't actually do any of the actual *work*. The Winklevi are like the ultimate PHBs, but worse.
There's no telling if the Winklevii would have taken the site in the same direction did if they weren't screwed over. Facebook was initially local as well.
If you read the opinion itself the court's holding did not rest on this observation, which was made in closing.
No statement is true, not even this one.
The illusion that the company is "worth $50 billion" would evaporate rapidly if an actual effort were made to liquidate it.
That's nonsense. I have an idea, I want to make a jet pack. I'm not intellectually or creatively capable of actually creating said jet pack myself, so I'm going to find a student at say MIT and see if he can do it for me. Dang it, the student thought the jet pack was a great idea too, but now he has his own vision for how he wants to build it. But we had a verbal agreement, he said he'd do it for me. A decade later, he's a billionaire, I thought of the jet pack idea and now everyone is flying around. I'm pissed. I know, this is America, I'm going to sue him for every penny he's earned for all of the work he put into actually making the idea, a reality.
The judge's point seems to be the following: you want to back out of the deal because you believe that the shares you were given as part of the settlement were not valued as highly as originally stated. However, those shares are worth a lot of money though, so things have worked out pretty peachy keen for you guys. Please stop wasting any more of the court's time.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Aha Mark, nice try posting as AC, but we KNOW your writing style. You may not think that we are talented, but we actually are. You have been figured out by this dynamic duo. Yessir, yessiree. As Darth Vader once said, all too easy!
--The Winklevoss Twins
P.S.: You owe us a larger undisclosed amount of shares.
It's more like, you signed a deal that specifically excludes anything said during the negotiations from being admissible in court. So live with that part of the deal. Since the Winklevosses have no evidence, they can't prevail. The relative value of the shares then and now are irrelevant.
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
Loser dude, who can't meet chicks on his own, steals idea of social network, fucks over his partners, gets rich, gets laid, still is a loser.
Did i get it all?
Be seeing you...
GP has been here for a very long time. Hell, he probably is actually a grand parent. He has years, decades even, more experience about not RTFAing than the rest of us.
On the other hand, as far as anyone can tell, they did come up with the idea...
For social networking? No they didn't.
For Facebook? No they didn't, they had an idea which was much more restricted and close-minded.
Without Zuckerberg their idea would have died in six months, leaving them in debt. They've done zero work and they're multi-millionaires now.
If I had their money I'd be retired on an island somewhere. STFU already.
No sig today...
WTF? If there's one place NOT to spamvertise Swarovski Crystals... they just found it.
No sig today...
They didn't come up with the idea. They said themselves that friendster already existed at the time. Their angle was making it exclusive to Harvard.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
Here's a more detailed story, including citations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ConnectU
The movie isn't that far off when it comes to the communication between zuckerberg and the twins. Characters and drama are obviously embelished and I don't know about all the stuff unrelated to HarvardConnection, but atleast this part seems to be reasonably accurate.
Long story short; Zuckerberg agreed to do the project, didn't deliver and released a nearly identical project of his own.
Ofcourse, trying to get out of a settlement is a whole different matter; that's just sad. The idea of a settlement is to end a legal battle, not to provide fertile grounds for more lawsuits.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
I beg to differ. An initial idea is worth almost nothing. The initial ideas for social network sites were already out there. People have great ideas all the time that they just don't do anything with. I started my career right before the Internet took off and lived in Silicon Valley hanging out with people from Apple, Netscape, Exodus, Sun, etc. Whenever the next big idea hit like Ebay, some acquaintance would say, "Damn, I had that idea 2 years ago."
Yeah, well, ideas are barely worth shit.
Discrimination of which ideas to pursue and how to refine them as well as the willpower and ability to execute upon them are vastly more important. Some funding is nice, too.
Guys like Zuckerberg who go after it, not letting anything stop him will succeed time and time again.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?