In 2003, twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and their friend Divya Narendra hired Mark Zuckerberg to help them build HarvardConnection (later renamed ConnectU), a dating website exclusively for Harvard students. Zuckerberg blew them off and worked on his own project instead, called The Facebook. The Winklevii and Narendra have been suing Zuckerberg since, claiming The Facebook was their idea. The twins were both portrayed by Armie Hammer (above) in The Social Network, and about all you need to know about them was summed up by the line “I’m 6’5″, 220, and there’s two of me.”
In 2008, they reached a generous settlement with Facebook in which they received about $65 million to shut up already. After the settlement, they filed an appeal with the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco claiming the $65 million was less than they were supposed to get. In April of this year the court threw out the appeal and stated, “The Winklevosses are not the first parties bested by a competitor who then seek to gain through litigation what they were unable to achieve in the marketplace. And the courts might have obliged, had the Winklevosses not settled their dispute and signed a release of all claims against Facebook.”
Yesterday in a filing with the Ninth Circuit of Appeals, the lawyer for the Winklevosses and Narendra said they are dropping the appeal and accepting the original deal ($20 million in cash plus stock that was worth $45 million but is now worth significantly more). They did not give a reason for the sudden willingness to finally settle.
As for Facebook, they released a statement that included this sick burn: “We’ve considered this case closed for a long time, and we’re pleased to see the other party now agrees.” Ouch. That’s gotta hurt. To make them feel better, I got the Winklevosses a card:
Wait, wrong card. The right one’s around here somewhere. Ah, here it is:
Mark Zuckerberg said they’d like this.
[Sources: Reuters, Techland, someecards]