MediaVidea

Behind every social network …

Call it the Godfather rule of success if you will. The Godfather begins with a quote; I think it is from Honore D. Balzac, which says that “behind every great wealth is crime”.

In midst of all this Silicon Valley-fed hype about Facebook, Venturebeat brings up an old case which is still alive in the courts:

Apparently, Facebook‘s Marc Zuckerberg has long been sued by brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra for stealing code for the site. They complain that Zuckerberg stole the source code, design, and business plan for Facebook in 2003 when he moonlighted as a programmer for ConnectU, a social-networking site.

There are many instances of great success rising from dubious means. Look around in the digital arena, code theft and plagiarism are commonplace and are often deemed hero-worthy acts among geeks.

However, I do not mean Facebook did it as the matter is before the courts - chances are Facebook will settle the suit for millions of dollars. Or maybe, the people from ConnectU are opportunists. Go figure.

A typical recipe for tech success may include these essentials: timing, luck and opportunity.

The hostel warden during my school days used to say – “to be successful, you need to be the right person, at the right time, and at the right place.”

So, fill this up for me: Behind every social network …

The Facebook case details are here.

Labels: controversey, facebook

posted by Pramit Singh @ 2:20 PM