Read the following article. In 80 words or more discuss if there were any ethical issues here that need to be explored? Do not discuss the legal issues.
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At last — the full story of how Facebook was
founded
Nicholas Carlson Mar 4, 2010, 11:10 PM
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Jason
McELweenie/Flickr
The origins of Facebook have
been in dispute since the very
week a 19-year-old Mark
Zuckerberg launched the site as
a Harvard sophomore on
February 4, 2004.
Then called “thefacebook.com,” the site was an instant hit. Now, six
years later, the site has become one of the biggest web sites in the
world, visited by 400 million people a month.
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The controversy surrounding Facebook began quickly. A week after
he launched the site in 2004, Mark was accused by three Harvard
seniors of having stolen the idea from them.
This allegation soon bloomed into a full-�edged lawsuit, as a
competing company founded by the Harvard seniors sued Mark and
Facebook for theft and fraud, starting a legal odyssey that continues
to this day.
New information uncovered by Silicon Alley Insider suggests that
some of the complaints against Mark Zuckerberg are valid. It also
suggests that, on at least one occasion in 2004, Mark used private
login data taken from Facebook’s servers to break into Facebook
members’ private email accounts and read their emails — at best, a
gross misuse of private information. Lastly, it suggests that Mark
hacked into the competing company’s systems and changed some
user information with the aim of making the site less useful.
The primary dispute around Facebook’s origins centered around
whether Mark had entered into an “agreement” with the Harvard
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seniors, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and a classmate named Divya
Narendra, to develop a similar web site for them — and then, instead,
stalled their project while taking their idea and building his own.
The litigation never went particularly well for the Winklevosses.
In 2007, Massachusetts Judge Douglas P. Woodlock called their
allegations “tissue thin.” Referring to the agreement that Mark had
allegedly breached, Woodlock also wrote, “Dorm room chit-chat does
not make a contract.” A year later, the end �nally seemed in sight: a
judge ruled against Facebook’s move to dismiss the case. Shortly
thereafter, the parties agreed to settle.
But then, a twist.
After Facebook announced the settlement, but before the settlement
was �nalized, lawyers for the Winklevosses suggested that the hard
drive from Mark Zuckerberg’s computer at Harvard might contain
evidence of Mark’s fraud. Speci�cally, they suggested that the hard
drive included some damning instant messages and emails.
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The judge in the case refused to look at the hard drive and instead
deferred to another judge who went on to approve the settlement.
But, naturally, the possibility that the hard drive contained additional
evidence set inquiring minds wondering what those emails and IMs
revealed. Speci�cally, it set inquiring minds wondering again
whether Mark had, in fact, stolen the Winklevoss’s idea, screwed
them over, and then ridden o� into the sunset with Facebook.
Unfortunately, since the contents of Mark’s hard drive had not been
made public, no one had the answers.
But now we have some.
Over the past two years, we have interviewed more than a dozen
sources familiar with aspects of this story — including people
involved in the founding year of the company. We have also reviewed
what we believe to be some relevant IMs and emails from the period.
Much of this information has never before been made public. None
of it has been con�rmed or authenticated by Mark or the company.
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Based on the information we obtained, we have what we believe is a
more complete picture of how Facebook was founded. This account
follows.
And what does this more complete story reveal?
We’ll o�er our own conclusions at the end. But �rst, here’s the story:
“We can talk about that after I get all the basic
functionality up tomorrow night.”
In the fall of 2003, Harvard seniors Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler
Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra were on the lookout for a web
developer who could bring to life an idea the three say Divya �rst had
in 2002: a social network for Harvard students and alumni. The site
was to be called HarvardConnections.com.
The three had been paying Victor Gao, another Harvard student, to
do coding for the site, but at the beginning of the fall term Victor
begged o� the project. Victor suggested his own replacement: Mark
Zuckerberg, a Harvard sophomore from Dobbs Ferry, New York.
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Back then, Mark was known at Harvard as the sophomore who had
built Facemash, a “Hot Or Not” clone for Harvard. Facemash had
already made Mark a bit of a celebrity on campus, for two reasons.
The �rst is that Mark got in trouble for creating it. The way the site
worked was that it pulled photos of Harvard students o� of Harvard’s
Web sites. It rearranged these photos so that when people visited
Facemash.com they would see pictures of two Harvard students and
be asked to vote on which was more attractive. The site also
maintained a list of Harvard students, ranked by attractiveness.
On Harvard’s politically correct campus, this upset people, and Mark
was soon hauled in front of Harvard’s disciplinary board for
students. According to a November 19, 2003 Harvard Crimson
article, he was charged with breaching security, violating copyrights,
and violating individual privacy. Happily for Mark, the article reports
that he wasn’t expelled.
The second reason everyone at Harvard knew about Facemash and
Mark Zuckerberg was that Facemash had been an instant hit. The
same Harvard Crimson story reports that after two weeks, “the site
had been visited by 450 people, who voted at least 22,000 times.”
That means the average visitor voted 48 times.
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winklevoss twinsIt was for this ability to build a wildly popular site
that Victor Gao �rst recommended Mark to Cameron, Tyler, and
Divya. Sold on Mark, the Harvard Connection trio reached out to him.
Mark agreed to meet.
They �rst met in an early evening in late November in the dining hall
of Harvard College’s Kirkland House. Cameron, Tyler, and Divya
brought up their idea for Harvard Connection, and described their
plans to A) build the site for Harvard students only, by requiring new
users to register with Harvard.edu email addresses, and B) expand
Harvard Connection beyond Harvard to schools around the country.
Mark reportedly showed enthusiastic interest in the project.
Later that night, Mark wrote an email to the Winklevoss brothers and
Divya: “I read over all the stu� 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.”
The next day, on December 1, Mark sent another email to the
HarvardConnections team. Part of it read, “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 stu� up and it starts to become
completely functional.”
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These two emails sounded like the words of someone who was eager
to be a part of the team and working away on the project. A few days
later, however, Mark’s emails to the HarvardConnection team started
to change in tone. Speci�cally, they went from someone who seemed
to be hard at work building the product to someone who was so busy
with schoolwork that he had no time to do any coding at all.
December 4: “Sorry I was unreachable tonight. I just got about three
of your missed calls. I was working on a problem set.”
December 10: “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.”
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 �nished with.”
Finally, on January 8:
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Sorry it’s taken a while for me to get back to you. I’m completely
swamped with work this week. I have three programming projects
and a �nal paper due by Monday, as well as a couple of problem
sets due Friday. I’ll be available to discuss the site again starting
Tuesday.
I”m still a little skeptical that we have enough functionality in the
site to really draw the attention and gain the critical mass
necessary to get a site like this to run…Anyhow, we’ll talk about it
once I get everything else done.
So what happened to change Mark’s tune about HarvardConnection?
Was he so swamped with work that he was unable to �nish the
project? Or, as the HarvardConnection founders have alleged, was he
stalling the development of HarvardConnection so that he could
build a competing site and launch it �rst?
Our investigation suggests the latter.
As a part of the lawsuit against Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg, the
above emails from Mark have been public for years. What has never
been revealed publicly is what Mark was telling his friends, parents,
and closest con�dants at the same time.
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Let’s start with a December 7th (IM) exchange Mark Zuckerberg had
with his Harvard classmate and Facebook cofounder, Eduardo
Saverin.
“They made a mistake haha. They asked me to make it
for them.”
Former PayPal CEO Peter Thiel gets a lot of credit for being the �rst
investor in Facebook, because he led the �rst formal Facebook round
in September of 2004 with a $500,000 investment at a $5 million
valuation. But the real “�rst investor” claim to fame should actually
belong to a Harvard classmate of Mark Zuckerberg’s named Eduardo
Saverin.
To picture Eduardo, what you need to know is that he was the kid at
Harvard who would wear a suit to class. He liked to give people the
impression that he was rich — and maybe somehow connected to the
Brazilian ma�a. At one point, in an IM exchange, Mark told a friend
that Eduardo — “head of the investment society” — was rich because
“apparently insider trading isn’t illegal in Brazil.”
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Eduardo Saverin wasn’t directly involved with Facebook for long:
During the summer of 2004, when Mark moved to Palo Alto to work
on Facebook full time, Eduardo took a high-paying internship at
Lehman Brothers in New York. While Mark was still at Harvard,
however, Eduardo appears to have bankrolled Facebook’s earliest
capital expenses, thus becoming its initial investor.
In January, however, Mark told a friend that “Eduardo is paying for
my servers.” Eventually, Eduardo would agree to invest $15,000 in a
company that would, in April 2004, be formed as Facebook LLC. For
his money, Eduardo would get 30% of the company.
Eduardo was also involved in Facebook’s earliest days, as a con�dant
of Mark Zuckerberg.
In December, 2003, a week after Mark’s �rst meeting with the
HarvardConnection team, when he was telling the Winklevosses that
he was too busy with schoolwork to work on or even think about
HarvardConnection.com, Mark was telling Eduardo a di�erent story.
On December 7, 2003, we believe Mark sent Eduardo the following
IM:
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Check this site out: www.harvardconnection.com and then go to
harvardconnection.com/datehome.php. Someone is already
trying to make a dating site. But they made a mistake haha.
They asked me to make it for them. So I’m like delaying it so
it won’t be ready until after the facebook thing comes out.
This IM suggests that, within a week of meeting with the
Winklevosses for the �rst time, Mark had already decided to start his
own, similar project–“the facebook thing.” It also suggests that he
had developed a strategy for dealing with his would-be competition:
Delay developing it.
“I feel like the right thing to do is finish the facebook and
wait until the last day before I’m supposed to have their
thing ready and then be like look yours isn’t as good”
A few weeks after the initial meeting with the HarvardConnection
team, after Mark sent the IM to Eduardo Saverin talking about
developing “the facebook thing” and delaying his development of
HarvardConnection, Mark met with the HarvardConnection folks,
Cameron, Tyler, and Divya, for a second time.
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This time, instead of meeting in the dining hall of Mark’s residential
hall, Kirkland House, the four met in Mark’s dorm room. Divya is said
to have arrived late.
In Kirkland House, the dorm rooms aren’t laid out in cinder-block-
cube style: Mark’s room had a narrow hallway connecting it to his
neighbor’s. As Cameron and Tyler sat down on a couch in Mark’s
room, Cameron spotted something in the hallway. On top of a
bookshelf there was a white board. It was the kind Web developers
and product managers everywhere use to map out their ideas.
On it, Cameron read two words, “Harvard Connection.” He got up to
go look at it. Immediately, Mark asked Cameron to stay out of the
hallway.
Eventually Divya arrived and the four of them talked about plans for
Harvard Connection. One feature Mark brought up was designed to
keep more popular and sought-after Harvard Connection users from
being stalked and harassed by crowds of people.
In this second meeting, Mark still appeared to be actively engaged in
developing Harvard Connection. But he never showed the
HarvardConnection folks any site prototypes or code. And they
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Harvard Yard at Winter
didn’t insist on seeing them.
During the weeks in which Mark was juggling the two projects in
tandem, he also had a series of IM exchanges with a friend named
Adam D’Angelo (above).
Adam and Mark went to boarding school together at Phillips Exeter
Academy. There, the pair became friends and coding partners.
Together they built a program called Synapse, a music player that
supposedly learned the listener’s taste and then adapted to it. Then,
in 2002 Mark went to Harvard and Adam went to Cal Tech. But the
pair stayed in close touch, especially through AOL instant messenger.
Eventually, Adam became Facebook’s CTO.
Through the Harvard Connection-
Facebook saga and its aftermath, Mark kept Adam apprised of his
plans and thoughts.
One purported IM exchange seems particularly relevant on the
question of how Mark distinguished between the two projects–the
“facebook thing” and “the dating site”–as well as how he was
considering handling the latter:
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Zuck: So you know how I’m making that dating site
Zuck: I wonder how similar that is to the Facebook thing
Zuck: Because they’re probably going to be released around the
same time
Zuck: Unless I fuck the dating site people over and quit on
them right before I told them I’d have it done.
D’Angelo: haha
Zuck: Like I don’t think people would sign up for the facebook
thing if they knew it was for dating
Zuck: and I think people are skeptical about joining dating things
too.
Zuck: But the guy doing the dating thing is going to promote it
pretty well.
Zuck: I wonder what the ideal solution is.
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Zuck: I think the Facebook thing by itself would draw many
people, unless it were released at the same time as the dating
thing.
Zuck: In which case both things would cancel each other out and
nothing would win. Any ideas? Like is there a good way to
consolidate the two.
D’Angelo: We could make it into a whole network like a friendster.
haha. Stanford has something like that internally
Zuck: Well I was thinking of doing that for the facebook. The only
thing that’s di�erent about theirs is that you like request dates
with people or connections with the facebook you don’t do that
via the system.
D’Angelo: Yeah
Zuck: I also hate the fact that I’m doing it for other people haha.
Like I hate working under other people. I feel like the right thing
to do is �nish the facebook and wait until the last day before I’m
supposed to have their thing ready and then be like “look yours
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isn’t as good as this so if you want to join mine you can…otherwise
I can help you with yours later.” Or do you think that’s too dick?
D’Angelo: I think you should just ditch them
Zuck: The thing is they have a programmer who could �nish their
thing and they have money to pour into advertising and stu�. Oh
wait I have money too. My friend who wants to sponsor this is
head of the investment society. Apparently insider trading isn’t
illegal in Brazil so he’s rich lol.
D’Angelo: lol
“I’m going to fuck them.”
Eduardo Saverin and Adam D’Angelo were not the only people Mark
discussed his Harvard Connection – Facebook situation with. We
believe he also had many IM exchanges about it with relatives and a
close female Harvard friend.
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In January 2004, Mark met with the Winklevoss brothers and Divya
Narendra for what would be the last time. The meeting was on
January 14, 2004, and it was held at the same place Mark met with
the HarvardConnection team for the �rst time — in the dining hall of
Mark’s residence, Kirkland House.
By this point, Mark’s site, thefacebook.com, wasn’t complete, but he
was working hard on it. He’d arranged for Eduardo Saverin to pay for
his servers. He had already told Adam that “the right thing to do” was
to not complete Harvard Connection and build TheFacebook.com
instead. He had registered the domain name.
He therefore had a choice to make: Tell Cameron, Tyler and Divya
that he wanted out of their project, or string them along until he was
ready to launch thefacebook.com.
Mark sought advice on this decision from his con�dants. One friend
told him, in so many words, you know me. I don’t ever think anyone
should do anything bad to anybody.
Mark and this friend also had the following IM exchange about how
Mark planned to resolve the competing projects:
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Friend: So have you decided what you’re going to do about the
websites?
Zuck: Yeah, I’m going to fuck them
Zuck: Probably in the year
Zuck: *ear
And so, it appears, he did. (In a manner of speaking).
On January 14, 2004, Mark Zuckerberg met with Cameron, Tyler, and
Divya for the last time. During the meeting at Kirkland House, Mark
expressed doubts about the viability of HarvardConnection.com. He
said he was very busy with personal projects and school work and
that he wouldn’t be able to work on the site for a while. He blamed
others for the site’s delays.
He did not say that he was working on his own project and that he
was not planning to complete the HarvardConnection site.
After the meeting, Mark had another IM exchange with the friend
above. He told her, in e�ect, that he had wimped out. He hadn’t been
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able to break the news to Cameron and Tyler, in part, he said, because
he was “intimidated” by them. He called them “poor bastards.”
So then what happened?
Three days earlier, on January 11, 2004, Mark had registered the
domain THEFACEBOOK.COM.
On February 4, he opened the site to Harvard students.
On February 10, Cameron Winklevoss sent Mark a letter accusing him
of
breaching their agreement and stealing their idea.
In late May, after going through two more developers, Cameron, Tyler
and Divya launched HarvardConnection as ConnectU, a social
network for 15 schools.
On June 10, 2004, a commencement speaker mentioned the amazing
popularity of Mark’s site, thefacebook.com.
In the summer of 2004, Mark moved to Palo Alto to work on Facebook
full time and soon received a $500,000 investment from Peter Thiel.
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In September 2004, HarvardConnection, now called ConnectU, sued
Mark Zuckerberg and the now-incorporated “Facebook” for allegedly
breaching their agreement and stealing their idea.
In February 2008, Facebook and ConnectU agreed to settle the
lawsuit.
In June 2008, ConnectU appealed the settlement in California’s ninth
district, accusing Facebook of trading its stock without disclosing
material information. This appeal is on-going.
The $65 million question
When we described the speci�cs of this story to Facebook, the
company had the following comment:
“We’re not going to debate the disgruntled litigants and
anonymous sources who seek to rewrite Facebook’s early history
or embarrass Mark Zuckerberg with dated allegations. The
unquestioned fact is that since leaving Harvard for Silicon Valley
nearly six years ago, Mark has led Facebook’s growth from a
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college website to a global service playing an important role in the
lives of over 400 million people.”
On the latter point, we agree. What Mark Zuckerberg has
accomplished with Facebook over the past six years has been nothing
short of amazing.
So, having revisited the founding of Facebook with additional
information, what do we conclude?
First, we have seen no evidence of any formal contract between Mark
Zuckerberg and the Winklevosses in which Mark agreed to develop
Harvard Connection.
Second, any agreement the parties may have had — as well as most of
the purported IMs and emails we have reviewed from the period —
appear to have been at the level of, as Judge Ware described them,
“dorm-room chit-chat.” (Albeit interesting and entertaining chit-
chat.)
Third, only a week after beginning development of Harvard
Connection, which he referred to as “the dating site,” Mark had begun
work on a separate project — “the facebook thing.” Mark appears to
have considered the products as competing for the attention of the
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same users, but he also appears to have regarded them as di�erent in
some key ways.
Fourth — and because of this foreseen competition — Mark does
appear to have intentionally strung along the Harvard Connection
folks with the goal of making his project, thefacebook.com, have a
more successful launch.
Bottom line, we haven’t seen anything that makes us think that,
whatever Mark did to the Harvard Connection folks, it was worth
more than the $65 million they received in the lawsuit settlement. In
fact, this seems like a huge sum of money considering that the entire
dispute took place over two months in 2004 and that, in the six years
since, Mark has built Facebook into a massive global enterprise.
That said, in the course of our investigation, we also uncovered two
additional anecdotes about Mark’s behavior in Facebook’s early days
that are more troubling. These episodes — an apparent hacking into
the email accounts of Harvard Crimson editors using data obtained
from Facebook logins, as well as a later hacking into ConnectU — are
described in detail here.
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How Mark Zuckerberg Hacked The Harvard Crimson Using Data
From TheFacebook.com
How Mark Zuckerberg Hacked Into Rival ConnectU In The
Summer Of 2004
Don’t Miss: Our Exclusive Interview With Mark Zuckerberg (Before
The Social Network, When He Was Almost Famous)
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