Winklevoss Twins Will Appeal Facebook Case to Supreme Court | Hacker News Reader

Winklevoss Twins Will Appeal Facebook Case to Supreme Court

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28 pointsssclafani37 comments

I wonder if they realize how foolish they look. In my social circle, Winklevoss has become a verb. It means to take more than your fair share of something, or to try to screw somebody over.

"dude you said you'd help move on saturday; don't Winklevoss me on this"

"Stop Winklevossing all of the beer."

On the other hand: it looks they have been done wrong by Zuckerberg and are seeking justice. Although I would be on a beach if I was one of them...

I'm not sure it does look that way. As Sorkin writes "MARK: The 'Winklevii' aren't suing me for intellectual property theft. They're suing me because for the first time in their lives, things didn't go exactly the way they were supposed to for them."

They were incredibly lucky to get the settlement they did and for them to consider risking that, or at minimum legal fees, seems very foolish.

Also Sorkin:

MARK: Did I use any of your code? DIVYA: You stole our whole goddam idea! […] MARK: Match-dot-com for Harvard guys? […] MARK: You know you really don’t need a forensic team to get to the bottom of this. If you guys were the inventors of Facebook you’d have invented Facebook.

Why are you quoting invented dialogue?

> Why are you quoting invented dialogue?

Because art both affects our beliefs and provides a nice form for expressing them.

Today's trivial "Follow the money" does not appear in the book "All the President's Men" and the relevant reporters never said or wrote it. It comes from the movie, written by William Goldman. And now "every" story about investigative journalism cites it.

It's probably true Zuckerberg broke some contracts and maybe stole some IP, but the Winklevi seem to think that if Mark Zuckerberg never existed they would have been able to build Facebook into the company it currently is therefore they're entitled to X% of Facebook's current value, which is completely ridiculous.

So far the only thing proved is they had an idea similar to Facebook (as did probably dozens or hundreds of other people at the time) and they're [kind of] good at filing lawsuits. If they want to be known for anything except "those guys who almost-but-not-really created Facebook" they should move on and build their own great company with their $100M+ from the settlement.

But they won't, because they know they can't.

You're probably right about that but the fact remains: Zuckerberg did them wrong, we don't know what would have happenend and someone in a similar position made billions with their idea and strategy. How they hypthetically would have executed if they had hired someone trusthworthy should hardly matter in a court.

i've heard the opposite about how great they are for doing nothing and making god knows how much from it.

At some point you'd think these guys would just want to move on with their lives and enjoy their millions of dollars. But no, perpetual court dates are some how more appealing. I wish someone would sue them for wasting everyone's times.

Exactly. They have a Harvard education, more riches than they could spend in a lifetime and still all they want to do with their lives is act like money-grubbing losers.

> more riches than they could spend in a lifetime

I don't think this is true of anyone, even Warren Buffett or Bill Gates.

It's really difficult to let someone get away with stealing from you. The Winkelvoss twins may feel they've been legitimately slighted, since it would seem they're not just in it for the cash.

> I don't think this is true of anyone, even Warren Buffett or Bill Gates.

I meant that as a figure of speech of course :)

> It's really difficult to let someone get away with stealing from you. The Winkelvoss twins may feel they've been legitimately slighted, since it would seem they're not just in it for the cash

Yes it must hurt, but they received adequate compensation. The point however is that they could be doing something more productive with their time. They'll go nowhere trying to bring Zuckerberg or Facebook down.

After The Social Network portrayed them in a good light and Zuckerberg as a thief, you'd think they'd feel vindicated. But that hasn't stopped them from throwing more lawsuits demanding money.

"It's really difficult to let someone get away with stealing from you."

While that is true, "feeling" slighted is no excuse for the colossal waste of time they're afflicting upon our court system and Facebook as a company.

I have personal experience sitting across the table from a plaintiff who refuses to come to grips with reality. They "believe" they were wronged, despite the evidence, despite the rulings, and despite common sense.

Litigation expenses have become a tax that we have to pay in order to conduct business. It's maddeningly frustrating to write checks to lawyers for tens of thousands of dollars, knowing that the time, energy, and money could have gone in to your product.

What I'm getting at is, it is equally, if not more, frustrating to sit where Mark Zuckerberg's is. The Winkelvoss twins don't get a pass from me for being complete douchebags, just because they "feel" wronged.

My guess is they're embracing their role as the antagonist, and trying to milk it for all the attention they can get. Sounds not unlike what Trump pulled recently.

…Or they're just delusional.

More likely, they've accepted that this is the best their lives are going to amount to. They're never going to create anything of value so the only way to 'earn' their riches is via litigation.

Once this is rejected by the supreme court, I hope Facebook takes every dime they have to cover it's legal fees from this nearly decade long waste of court resources. Don't get me wrong, I truly believe that Mark screwed them over while he was building Facebook but they got a decent settlement out of it(odds are much more than they would have if they'd actually ran Harvard Connection) and yet their greed won't let them enjoy the tens of millions they have. Sometimes it's better to just take the deal and move on with your life.

Here's a thought for the judge: at the time Mark supposedly stole their idea, he wouldn't have thought he was stealing $50 Billion, and the Winklevii wouldn't have thought it was worth $50 Billion. Let's say they had $10 million on average in their minds. Given that the Winklevii, as far as I can see, have done squat in the meantime online, or of any achievement, had the pair worked together as they had hoped they may have been lucky to exit on $2 million, if that, and it would've been on Mark's doing. The pair should get $1 million between them, and then they should be penalized for wasting legal resources that could've been put to better use. They deserve Zilch, and their awards so far confiscated. Mark could help pay for legal costs, because it was his actions that led to the dispute.

Why would the Supreme Court hear this? Is there anything novel about this case? I haven't read all the filings, but I'm just not aware of something unusual / precedent setting here.

It would be stunning if it's each party's responsibility to make sure that the other has absolutely no misconceptions in a settlement, and as far as I can tell, that's really the only question on the table, right?

The winklevoss twins would be better off suing counsel for not doing due diligence on the cap table, I'd guess. I suppose counsel doesn't have billions floating around, though.

Throwing tantrums in the name of justice, but really it's for glory, yet the the glory is parasitic. Would you do business with these guys? Mark was right.

Since pointing fingers at the Winklevoss twins is a common theme in these threads I'll just post at the top.

Regardless of who's side you're on in this you have to accept that the value of what's contested (who came up with / owns / started Facebook) is worth much, much more than ~$65 million (the original settlement amount). Call it greed or call it white-collar entitlement, but these guys seem serious about seeing it all the way through. Who wouldn't? No sane lawyer is going to advise them to settle for a fraction of what they might actually have a legal right to. Too much money is on the table.

The crux of the argument (for me personally) is whether or not these guys hired Zuckerberg to build the original version of what became Facebook. I've not read up enough to be convinced either way, but again, lawyers will weigh the options and advise accordingly. At the end of it there will at least be some more case law around who-owns-what under similar circumstances.

"Regardless of who's side you're on in this you have to accept that the value of what's contested (who came up with / owns / started Facebook) is worth much, much more than ~$65 million (the original settlement amount). "

If you mean the value of Facebook, of course it's worth more. But nobody would give them the entire value of Facebook, not even close. They settled because, apparently, their lawyers thought it was the best deal they were going to get. Otherwise why settle in the first place?

They're not trying to get the settlement undone because they didn't like the settlement itself. They're just claiming that Facebook lied about how much money exactly they were getting as part of the settlement.

"No sane lawyer is going to advise them to settle for a fraction of what they might actually have a legal right to. Too much money is on the table."

Well first of all they did settle, originally. And by the way, they refused to pay their first lawyers (who did the settling) for 2 years. Recently, a judge ordered them to pay their lawyers.

"The crux of the argument (for me personally) is whether or not these guys hired Zuckerberg to build the original version of what became Facebook."

They did hire Zuckerberg to build their site. This is not contested. I'm pretty sure it's also uncontested that Zuckerberg didn't copy any of their code or anything. How similar the two ideas are is something that's pretty hard to say, though.

First off, I never said the entire value, but meant to point out that their potential stake could be worth far more than $65 million. According to the linked article they're claiming Facebook lied about its value at the time of the settlement, and they they're entitled to an amount promised based on its true valuation.

Your point about what they hired him to do is closer to what I was getting at, but I suppose that point seems clear enough given that they came to a settlement.

i've been avoiding it, but is it worth seeing the movie?

I enjoyed it. The soundtrack (composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross) is awesome too.

Absolutely, 100%. Strongest possible recommendation. It's rare that what we do here makes it to the big screen. Even emacs gets name checked, accurately.

I might have to see the movie just to see emacs mentioned and giggle like a schoolgirl.

It's good if you treat it as historical fiction.

My settlement was negotiated by the same mediator, so this is of interest insofar as it might shed some light on how strong his rather informal style is. I've been told that it's pretty strong.

Now if only they could both lose...

You can see in my HN comment history that I have no love for neither the twins nor MZ -- but I have to wonder if their perpetual legal battle is egged on by the lawyers who stand to gain much but lose nothing should this continue.

The twins could lose (everything?) a lot should this be thrown out. I think the lawyers are pushing for this all the way...

you took the deal. suck it up.

I think they are actually like the movie.

I'm wondering now if the film toned them down a bit to make them more believable...

Yeah, Sorkin got that part right.

I've talked to a few people who have encountered them and they confirm this.

I'm sure there are some lawyers doing it just on a success fee basis. The stakes are def high enough.

Marcin / http://linkfindr.com

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yeah, already got that under another post - sorry :)

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