The Zuck > Winklevoss thing here is out of control. Do you guys even understand what really happened?
This is not a tale of "Rich assholes tell hacker about their idea, then sue him for building it without them."
This is "Rich assholes come to hacker with mostly built site, he agrees to finish it up for an equity stake, and then lies to them for two months about progress to make sure that he can beat them to market."
Do all of you Winklevoss-haters even realize that the site was almost done when Zuck joined up?
That the guy that started building the site worked on it for four months and only stopped because he graduated to get a job at Google?
That the next contractor specifically referred Zuck as a good person to get the job finished when he had to leave?
That if Zuck had said "no" they would have found someone else to finish it, but he didn't say "no" because he realized how important it was to be first to market?
It's not like this was some fucking pie-in-the-sky idea. There was code on the table (crafted by a guy that got a job at Google a few months later, so probably pretty decent code), and they were putting money behind getting it finished. The only reason that Facebook beat them to market is that Zuckerberg lied to them for four months about working on it. Specifically so that he could delay them, from the looks of it - his IMs indicate that within a couple weeks of first meeting with them, he'd already decided to string them along but had no intention of actually doing the work.
Do I like the idea of non-technical founders getting hackers to work for equity? No, I don't. It's their right, and it's the hacker's right to foolishly say yes, but I don't think it's ideal.
But I'm far more offended at the idea that a hacker agrees to take on the task of finishing a project, digests the confidential IP (including code) that they've agreed to flesh out, and then lies to the client to delay them and then crush them in the market. That's disgustingly unethical (not to mention fraudulent) behavior.
If you question whether Zuck's motives were really that sinister, read some of his IMs, like the one he sent to Eduardo, in December (3 months before launch, as he was telling the twins that the site was "almost complete"): "Check this site out: www.harvardconnection.com and then go to harvardconnection.com/datehome.php. Someone is already trying to make a dating site. But they made a mistake haha. They asked me to make it for them. So I'm like delaying it so it won't be ready until after the facebook thing comes out." (http://www.businessinsider.com/how-facebook-was-founded-2010... - there's more sinister stuff there, too)
Shit like this? He should have lost 100% of the business, plain and simple, and (to their discredit) if the Winklevoss twins had played the legal dispute competently (they should have pushed harder, earlier, and they obviously should not taken the settlement offer when they did), he would have.
I'd love to see the source code to that site at the point it was handed off to Zuck. If this was really near finished, or at least significantly far along, it would be extremely illuminating.
Here's the thing though. How could the Winklevoss twins get strung along for 4 months? Not that this has any relevance to the ethics of the matter. But their contribution to developing this idea was simply money. They needed technical people to build on that idea. Outside of this one idea they funded, they haven't done anything significant or relevant in business since. And now they're just spending money that they got from the settlement.
I'd much rather take a $5 Starbucks coffee and a conversation with Paul Graham over $1M in funding from the Winklevoss twins. I just don't see what value they bring to the table. Money can be found all over the place.
This is not a tale of "Rich assholes tell hacker about their idea, then sue him for building it without them."
This is "Rich assholes come to hacker with mostly built site, he agrees to finish it up for an equity stake, and then lies to them for two months about progress to make sure that he can beat them to market."
Do all of you Winklevoss-haters even realize that the site was almost done when Zuck joined up?
That the guy that started building the site worked on it for four months and only stopped because he graduated to get a job at Google?
That the next contractor specifically referred Zuck as a good person to get the job finished when he had to leave?
That if Zuck had said "no" they would have found someone else to finish it, but he didn't say "no" because he realized how important it was to be first to market?
It's not like this was some fucking pie-in-the-sky idea. There was code on the table (crafted by a guy that got a job at Google a few months later, so probably pretty decent code), and they were putting money behind getting it finished. The only reason that Facebook beat them to market is that Zuckerberg lied to them for four months about working on it. Specifically so that he could delay them, from the looks of it - his IMs indicate that within a couple weeks of first meeting with them, he'd already decided to string them along but had no intention of actually doing the work.
Do I like the idea of non-technical founders getting hackers to work for equity? No, I don't. It's their right, and it's the hacker's right to foolishly say yes, but I don't think it's ideal.
But I'm far more offended at the idea that a hacker agrees to take on the task of finishing a project, digests the confidential IP (including code) that they've agreed to flesh out, and then lies to the client to delay them and then crush them in the market. That's disgustingly unethical (not to mention fraudulent) behavior.
If you question whether Zuck's motives were really that sinister, read some of his IMs, like the one he sent to Eduardo, in December (3 months before launch, as he was telling the twins that the site was "almost complete"): "Check this site out: www.harvardconnection.com and then go to harvardconnection.com/datehome.php. Someone is already trying to make a dating site. But they made a mistake haha. They asked me to make it for them. So I'm like delaying it so it won't be ready until after the facebook thing comes out." (http://www.businessinsider.com/how-facebook-was-founded-2010... - there's more sinister stuff there, too)
Shit like this? He should have lost 100% of the business, plain and simple, and (to their discredit) if the Winklevoss twins had played the legal dispute competently (they should have pushed harder, earlier, and they obviously should not taken the settlement offer when they did), he would have.