Mark Zuckerberg is 24 years old and reportedly worth an estimated $1.5 billion. In case you're not a hardcore nerd and don't immediately recognize his name, Zuckerberg is the CEO of a little company called Facebook. In case you're not a) under 24; b) addicted to the internet; or c) up on the latest cultural trends, Facebook is the sixth-most visited website in the world. It is the latest & trendiest in a line of so-called "social networking" websites. Zuckerberg was a student at Harvard when he started the site and access was originally limited to students at Harvard University. Gradually it was expanded to other ivy league schools, then all universities and colleges, then to high school students, and eventually to anyone other the age of 13 (which is where it stands now). Facebook is a phenomenon - 70 million users log in daily to access their account with the number of users increasing by approximately 150,000 per day. Zuckerberg has been called his generation's Bill Gates.
But apparently not everyone is a fan. Four of his fellow Harvard students are claiming he stole their idea. Rolling Stone reports on The Battle for Facebook .
Ten months before Zuckerberg launched Facemash, a Harvard junior named Divya Narendra had come up with the idea of creating a social network aimed at college students.
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Narendra went to two of his dormmates, identical twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, and told them he had an idea for an online community for Harvard students, with access granted only to those with a college e-mail address. The twins instantly recognized the idea's potential.
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Throughout 2003, Narendra and the twins worked on the site, hiring several fellow students to help them code it. But by that fall, the site still wasn't finished. Then, in November, the entrepreneurs, who'd heard about the rise and fall of Zuckerberg's Facemash, decided to contact the programming prodigy and catch some of his computing heat.
On the phone, Narendra told Zuckerberg the site — called the Harvard Connection — would have two sections: "dating" and "connecting." Students could post photos of themselves, enter personal information and search for links. Narendra and the twins wanted Zuckerberg to do about 10 hours of programming; in return, they claim they offered him a piece of the company. That month, Zuckerberg met with the partners, and he agreed to work on the site.
Zuckerberg reportedly agreed to do the programming but kept making excuses for how long it was taking him. He put the group off for two months before finally meeting with them in January 2004. At that meeting he told them they should get another programmer - this despite reassuring them all along that he was almost finished.
On February 4th, 2004 Zuckerberg launched his own website - Facebook.com. The Harvard Connection partners felt robbed & eventually filed a lawsuit.
Around the same time (~January 6th) Zuckerberg emailed another Harvard student, Aaron Greenspan. Greenspan was a Harvard junior who had developed and launched a networking portal for Harvard students. The site was called TheFacebook. Zuckerberg wanted to ask Greenspan's advice on a "top-secret" project he was working on. He claimed to be writing a web application that used the Harvard course catalog, which Greenspan's program also did. He asked for advice on who to contact to get permission to use the catalog. Greenspan replied by asking if Zuckerberg would like to incorporate Greenspan's earlier "Facebook" project into his new "top-secret" project. Zuckerberg blew him off with a promise to consider it "once it's off the ground". Zuckerberg continued to seek Greenspan's advice throughout 2004. In December of 2004, Greenspan asked for a job at Facebook & Zuckerberg turned him down saying they wanted someone with more engineering experience. Zuckerberg gave no credit to Greenspan for having first created an online facebook for Harvard.
The story goes into detail of various other friends that Zuckerberg has used & then blown off. One of his closest friends, Eduardo Saverin, his roommate at Harvard, was originally given 30 percent of Facebook due to his work in launching the site & the seed money he provided to Zuckerberg. Eventually Zuckerberg had a disagreement with Saverin and transferred all intellectual property rights and membership interests to a new venture which did include Saverin.
It could just be a case of everyone trying to get some money out of the rich kid. But for the people interviewed it seems to be about more than money. It seems like there are many people who really consider Zuckerberg to be a dick.
