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A comment on Ask HN: So, what did you think of the Social Network?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: So, what did you think of the Social Network? by chopsueyar on Saturday October 02, 2010 @01:13AM (#1749792)
Are you intentionally forgetting the part where Zuckerberg is working for the Winkelvosses, yet not performing any work for them, and coding a competing website at the same time, then launching his site, and telling the Winkelvosses he can't work for them any longer, because of their problem code?

Also, the Winkelvosses had two prior programmers, whose code Zuckerberg had access to.

This is on Wikipedia about ConnectU:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ConnectU#Mark_Zuckerberg

Later that evening, Zuckerberg told Cameron Winklevoss in an email that he didn't expect completion of the project to be difficult. Zuckerberg writes: "I read over all the stuff you sent and it seems like it shouldn't take too long to implement, so we can talk about that after I get all the basic functionality up tomorrow night."[9] The next day, on December 1st, 2003, Zuckerberg sent another email to the HarvardConnection team. "I put together one of the two registration pages so I have everything working on my system now. I'll keep you posted as I patch stuff up and it starts to become completely functional."[6] On December 4th, 2003, Zuckerberg writes: "Sorry I was unreachable tonight. I just got about three of your missed calls. I was working on a problem set."[6] On December 10, 2003: "The week has been pretty busy thus far, so I haven't gotten a chance to do much work on the site or even think about it really, so I think it's probably best to postpone meeting until we have more to discuss. I'm also really busy tomorrow so I don't think I'd be able to meet then anyway."[6] On December 17th, 2004, a week later: "Sorry I have not been reachable for the past few days. I've basically been in the lab the whole time working on a cs problem set which I"m still not finished with."[6] On January 8, 2004, Zuckerberg emailed to say he was "completely swamped with work [that] week" but had "made some of the changes ... and they seem[ed] to e working great" on his computer. He said he could discuss the site starting the following Tuesday, on Jan. 13.[9] On January 11th, 2004, Zuckerberg registered the domain name thefacebook.com.[12] Three days later, on January 14th, 2004, Zuckerberg met again with Tyler Winklevoss, Cameron Winklevoss and Divya Narendra about HarvardConnection, however, he never mentioned registering the domain name thefacebook.com or a competing website, rather he reported progress on HarvardConnection, told them he would continue to work on it, and would email the group later in the week.[9] On February 4th, 2004, Zuckerberg launched thefacebook.com.

The Winklevosses and Narendra attempted to force the Harvard administration to act on what they viewed as a violation of the university’s honor code. They took the case to the Harvard Administrative Board and the university president Larry Summers, but it was ruled to be outside of university jurisdiction.[13]

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Re:Ask HN: So, what did you think of the Social Network? by AndyKelley on Saturday October 02, 2010 @08:23AM (#1750302)
Are you intentionally forgetting the part where Zuckerberg is working for the Winkelvosses, yet not performing any work for them, and coding a competing website at the same time, then launching his site, and telling the Winkelvosses he can't work for them any longer, because of their problem code?

What actually are the rules about that in this situation?

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Re:Ask HN: So, what did you think of the Social Network? by chopsueyar on Saturday October 02, 2010 @08:53AM (#1750343)
Well, Zuckerberg eventually paid the brothers $65 million dollars (in Facebook stock), after his attorneys advised him he would not do well in a jury trial (according to the movie).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Facebook#ConnectU....

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Re:Ask HN: So, what did you think of the Social Network? by marknutter on Saturday October 02, 2010 @09:21AM (#1750380)
The matter has been settled, so there's little point in arguing the finer details about what happened between Zuck and the Twins. The point I'm trying to make is that the Twins could have avoided all of this if they had gotten off their damn boat and learned how to program themselves. If their idea was so damn revolutionary and game changing, they would have built it themselves or made Zuck sign an NDA. They fucked up, plain and simple. Zuck in the movie put it best (and I paraphrase): "They are just upset that for the first time in their lives things haven't gone exactly how they thought they would."
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Re:Ask HN: So, what did you think of the Social Network? by code_duck on Saturday October 02, 2010 @09:54AM (#1750434)
They weren't programmers. Some people just cannot, and never will be, software developers.

So, they 'fucked up' by hiring someone, and trusting that he was not lying to their faces and scheming behind their backs? I hope those aren't the morals you put to play in your own work.

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Re:Ask HN: So, what did you think of the Social Network? by chopsueyar on Saturday October 02, 2010 @10:41AM (#1750516)
That's kind of like saying Zuck should have trained hard and gotten on the Crew team so he could have "relations" with the female at the beginning of the movie.

Aslo The Winklevoss brother's insistence on acting as "men of Harvard", could have entirely changed the outcome. Had they immediately sued, the CFO would not let development continue and we would not have Facebook in its current form.

Also, they could have kicked the crap out of the guy, which, although illegal, can be pretty demotivating.

If the Winklevoss's claim had no merit, they would not have received $65 million in Facebook stock, nor would Zuck's attorney advise him against a jury trial.

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