Winklevoss twins' new Facebook lawsuit rejected by judge | Hacker News Reader

Winklevoss twins' new Facebook lawsuit rejected by judge

theregister.co.uk

39 pointsjvc2619 comments

I dont really see what they hope to achieve, i think they want 100% ownership of Facebook or something. 65 million is a nice chunk of change and its not like they were poor to begin with. You'd think they'd stop allowing this issue to control their lives and focus their drive into something more constructive. They're unlikely to topple Facebook, so why not pick a different industry and dominate that, its not like they dont have the resources or intelligence to be able to do it. If they could get over their egos they could become extremely successful.

If they could get over their egos they could become extremely successful.

You think so? Personally, after seeing the situation unfold and the choices they've made, I'd be extremely wary, simply just on principle, of supporting anything they make.

I'd say they already are. They've made a career out of suing Facebook, and a lucrative one at that. Its not great smalltalk when "what do you do?" comes up at cocktail parties, but they could always use their facebook money to throw their own party...

I don't think they are actually that involved. I'm guessing their army of lawyers are constantly thinking up ways to try to get more money beating this particular dead horse and the twins are just giving the nod. $65m already, why not?

Yes, I think this is it. They have few fixed legal costs since their lawyers likely will be paid out of winnings, the potential gain is enormous, and their reputation has already been made so there's little to lose socially and they might increase their prestige if they win more control, which is possible.

I do not care for them but they would need to practice an increasingly rare business philosophy to find the strength to turn down this opportunity for more money and prestige.

This frightens me. Not that the judge rejected their lawsuit (that's excellent news), but rather, that it's obvious that no amount of money can make these two happy. Not only is $65M a lot of money, but in all honesty, it's a stretch that it's even theirs. Even if they did have the original idea for Facebook, their execution of that idea was so ghastly that it doesn't even matter. If these two were real entrepreneurs, they'd be thankful for the outrageous sum they've already received and put it into a new company. Speaking of which, are they seriously operating under the DBA of ConnectU just to hassle Facebook?

Actually, their "winning" is a lot more than $65M. They took $20M in cash, and the rest in facebook stock, which has increased from the 15B valuation to anything from 50B to 70B now on the private secondary markets.

That fact makes me cringe.

Yeah - its incredible when you consider just how much the cash, and more importantly the stock they've already gained is worth. They are like a patent troll in many ways - keen to exploit as much money from someone without having to put in more graft themselves!

I'm not a lawyer, but my guess is that they're operating under ConnectU as a CYA measure. That way, if the suit goes bust and/or they get countersued, then the company ConnectU is on the hook for the financial damages, and not the Winklevosses individually (or their families).

Makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.

After making $65 million for doing nothing these guys are still seeing dollar signs. They found a golden ticket and are still whining they weren't given the candy factory.

You Know What's Cooler Than 65 Million Dollars? 6.5 Billion Dollars!

On a serious note, I kind of wonder if there is more to this story than just mark stalling the twins. e.g., they claimed on a show that there was much more than they could talk about due to the settlement -- such as mark using the ConnectU code.

It'd be pretty silly for them to keep the ConnectU code in there, even if it were true. In such an instance, I'd expect that Facebook would've changed all instances of plagiarized code, and edited it out of their revision history.

Without any actual evidence in there, what case is there?

Of course, the fact that code exists in ConnectU namespace does not necessarily make it unique or valuable.

He lifted our entire DB layer!

Someone needs to tell these guys that they already won.

I can't decide if that shows whether these guys would be good or bad entrepreneurs. This kind of insane persistence in pursuit of what you believe in is sometimes a good sign for starting a business. On the other hand, they have made some very poor choices in that pursuit, and they've demonstrated that money is far more important to them than it is to the entrepreneurs that I admire.

Independent of that, they're exercising a non-trivial chilling effect on startups at the earliest stages, so I hate 'em for that, and I am deeply suspicious of the class angle - these guys are sons of wealth, I can't imagine they've ever known serious privation in their lives, and they're trying to squeeze still more money from someone who, much as I dislike him, earned it by working his ass off.

If I were a Randian, I'd be the kind of Randian who believes that the wealthy are the real parasites, for exactly reasons like this.

"these guys are sons of wealth, I can't imagine they've ever known serious privation in their lives, and they're trying to squeeze still more money from someone who, much as I dislike him, earned it by working his ass off."

True, but with a few asterisks.

First: Zuckerberg himself didn't exactly go hungry as a kid. AFAIK, he came from a fairly well to do -- probably upper middle class, though certainly not Winklevoss-class -- background.

The class angle certainly makes unsympathetic villains of the Winklevosses, but their actions -- not our best guesses at their upbringing -- are the real reasons to revile them.

Likewise, as much as the last name "Winklevoss" makes me want them to be the stuck-up rich assholes to Zuckerberg's self-made work ethic, Zuckerberg did go to Harvard from Phillips-Exeter Academy.

Financial Aid can do wonders, but that kind of track record spits money.

Those are important amplifications and qualifications to what I said - thanks. :)

Did Zuck steal their idea...maybe a little. But it was his brilliance that made Facebook into what it is today. They should take their $65 mil and be happy with it.

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