Facebook To Settle With Original Founder

Facebook is close to settling the lawsuit filed by Facebook's original founders Divya Narendra, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss reports the NYTimes.

The three founders accused Mark Zuckerberg of stealing their profitable idea back in 2003, when they were all Harvard students. The three founder organized under the name "ConnectU" had hired Mr. Zuckerberg, then a sophomore at Harvard, in 2003 to help create a campus-wide dating site called Harvard Connection. The idea was to create an online version of offline facebooks' incorporating images and profiles of students. They said Zuckerberg stalled on the project for months while working on his own idea and ultimately starting TheFacebook.com.

The lawsuit cast doubts on Mr. Zuckerberg’s ingenuity and brought out embarrassing details about his past such as his Harvard application and diary. Mr. Zuckerberg moved to Palo Alto, CA and was able to sell the concept as a MySpace alternative to venture capitalists and ultimately convince Microsoft to invest $240 million at a $15 billion valuation. Recently the company has hired some high profile people such as Sheryl Sandberg former VP of Online Sales at Google to be its new COO.

Facebook had filed a countersuit, accusing ConnectU of unfair business practices. However, the case seems to have been dropped or terminated. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.