Mark E. Zuckerberg ’06: The whiz behind thefacebook.com (2004)

I do not admire nor glorify Zuckerberg. I don't understand why some people do. But then, why do people glorify Steve Jobs? Sure, without Jobs' sense of design and aesthetics, Apple would have never become more than a garage startup, but without Wozniak's technical expertise, Jobs would have never been in a position where his sense of aesthetics could make a difference, and he would have ended up a failed pothead like many of his generation...

So it's not like the Winklevoss brothers approached Mark, pitched him, and he thought, "I can do this better." He actually went to work on their product and then, later, while he was ostensibly working on ConnectU, launched a competing product.

That is, it's not "he stole my idea!" It's "he took our code and confidential information and used the opportunity we gave him to harm our business."

I am not whining because I am into hardware, not software. Thankfully, in my field a couple of teenagers could never put a 20-year veteran out of business.

I don't think anyone is claiming that Zuckerberg stole the social network website idea. The crux of the matter is whether he stole the code. On the other hand, coding is easy, so why steal it, right?

OK, let's forget the labels "hacker" and "business person" for a second. The point is that the ones who have the money, are the ones who set the rules. Imagine that I am someone who wants to start a business, and that you are someone who has money to invest. I spend 5 years of my life trying to build a business (not necessarily tech related) and I fail. You invested in 99 other companies and, overall, obtain a return on your investment. Since you have the money, you have the power to spread the risk. If I succeeded, you would reap a great deal of the rewards, even though you had little skin in the game.

Sure, I can hire a bunch of programmers for my company, but it's my company, so I am the first wave who's gonna take the heat if things go wrong... the programmers can always get a job elsewhere.

The point is that the rich and powerful can afford a risk-reward profile that someone who is "in the trenches" cannot afford. Being "in the trenches" is what entrepreneurs, hackers, scientists do. Being a rear echelon pussy is what VC's, politicians and managers do. That's what I meant.

But what if you brought as much or more to the planning as others? If your multitudinous 'partners' want vast credit for concepts and feature requests while you handle all the details and execution? If they're treating you like a 'contractor' (your analogy) when you know you're the prime mover? If there's nothing but vague oral agreements about future possibilities?

I see it as: Zuckerburg realized he could better do what he wanted to do -- indeed wanted to do even before meeting HarvardConnection -- on his own. They parted ways after barely 3 months of informal collaboration (while also full-time students).

No doubt both sides fumbled a lot of the communication. They were undergrads, after all. What did they know about clear agreements, scoping development efforts, clearly assigning IP rights of side projects, managing expectations, the value and novelty (or not) of ideas? A lot less than they all know now, I'm sure.