Winklevosses find out about thefacebook.com
The Winklevosses and Narendra find out about thefacebook.com when they read a press release in The Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper.
Tyler: None of us knew about it until we picked up the [Crimson]. We read this article that says ‘thefacebook launched by Mark Zuckerberg,’ and we sort of stepped back and were like, ‘Well, that sounds like our idea…’
According to Gao, who looked at the HarvardConnection code afterward, Zuckerberg had left the HarvardConnection code incomplete and non-functional, with a registration that did not connect with the back-end connections.
Zuckerberg, Winklevoss’ meet
The brothers and Narendra meet Zuckerberg in the dining hall of Harvard’s Kirkland House, where they explain the HarvardConnection website, the plan to expand to other schools after launch, the confidential nature of the project, and the importance of getting there first. During the meeting, Zuckerberg allegedly enters into an oral contract with Narendra and the Winklevosses to become a partner in HarvardConnection.
Although his attorneys have denied that any formal discussion about compensation or ownership of Harvard Connection took place, Gao would later tell the court:
I told him that [Narendra and the Winklevosses] would either pay him on a rolling basis or take him on as a partner with the possibility of taking an equal stake. He became visibly excited. He told me that he wanted the latter option … because he thought the Harvard Connection website had the potential to reach out to a very large user base.
He is given the private server location and password for the unfinished HarvardConnection website and code, with the understanding that he will finish the programming necessary for launch. Zuckerberg allegedly chooses to be compensated in the form of sweat equity.