It seems there are lots of skeletons in the closet of Mark Zuckerberg. Yesterday there was the news that the Winklevoss twins (Cameron & Tyler) have lost the compensation appeal in the Facebook case. According to the Winklevoss twins the compensation they received which is around $65 million (in the form of cash & stocks) is not enough for their settlement with Facebook and Zuckerberg. We all know and it has been stated in the movie ‘The Social Network` that Facebook (or the so called idea on which Facebook is based) was originally conceived by the Winklevoss twins along with their business partner Divya Narendra and they hired Mark Zuckerberg to code up the site, but instead of coding the site for Winklevoss and Narendra, Mr. Zuckerberg steal the idea and code the site into what has now became Facebook.
In the latest developments which came out today, the person named Paul Ceglia is now claiming a 50% stake in the Facebook. Not 10 not 20, 50%. According to Paul he hired Mark in 2003 (who was 18 years old then) to work on a contract basis and gave $1000 to Zuckerberg for this work. Paul Ceglia who is not clean as it seems was a convicted felon, who has spend some time in the prison for fraud and larceny. Paul first filed the suit against Mark last summer but during that time he was not having solid evidences to support his case. Now Paul hired a top law firm DLA Piper and said to have emails which Mark wrote to Paul during their work engagement from 2003 to 2004. According to Paul, Mark had agreed to gave him 50% stake in the Facebook during the initial stages of the project and Mark Zuckerberg has also signed the contract stating the same. The detail of the emails between Mark & Paul were published in Business Insider and to some extent looks genuine.
Eduardo Saverin, Winklevoss twins along with Divya Narendra and now Paul Ceglia, one thing is for sure that there was some mystery behind the past of Mark Zuckerberg and the so called existence of Facebook. As claimed by Zuckerberg that the complete code of Facebook has been conceived by him and he had not steal the code from anybody. To me the idea for the Facebook or as a matter of fact any project or startup is more important (as compared to its execution or in this case coding), and according to the details we all know it seems that the idea of Facebook does not belong to Mark Zuckerberg.
DLA Piper is a well known and globally recognized firm and they won’t touch the case till they are convinced with the case depth and the evidences they’ll be presenting and supporting. If the claims made by Paul are proved to be true then he could get millions of dollars in settlement, if not, then the prison is waiting for him. Moreover why now, why has not Paul declared these emails long back, what kept him quiet for 7 long years? These are some of the points which can make this case weak and things can go in the favor of Mark Zuckerberg. Accoring to the media's specualtion, it seems Mark has to settle another law suit. I guess by now Mark should have become more proficient in handling such situations. Let’s see how this case turns out to be. By the looks of it seems to be a good case for DLA Piper and Paul Ceglia. Seems everybody is not a fan of Facebook, though they want to make an impression on the wall, the wall of fame and money.
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