20th
The Winklebabies
Erin and I were watching the today show this morning and the Winklevoss twins were on talking about the Facebook movie and their position on how Mark Zuckerberg “Stole” the idea from them.
First of all, these guys got a reported $65 million for their “idea” in a settlement, so at this point they should be quiet and enjoy their wealth.
But what I find even more ridiculous then the fact that they are still bitching after their payday, is that Facebook was not their idea. I remember when I was in college seeing 2-3 business plans from kids just at Babson that wanted to do something similar to Facebook and that was in 1998/1999.
By the time Mark did Facebook there was a ton of small fledgling social networks on college campuses and elsewhere. The idea was not unique, his execution was.
Even if the Winklevoss’ had given Mark the business plan for Facebook, the chance that the business would have succeeded with just that in reality are zero. And lets just say that Mark had built the Winklevoss’ shit as asked, I would bet anything that they would never have made it far out of the starting blocks.
Ideas in the tech space have little to no value. Execution is the magical part and really the only thing of real value in businesses like Facebook. So regardless of what people think about Mark Zuckerberg, the simple fact remains that he and his team were able to achieve something that no on else could with an idea that was not at all unique.
