Readers will know that I am not always a big fan of Facebook. On the other hand, I am a fan of hard work and doing your job right. That's the reason I've managed to get anyone to read these pages, or succeeded at anything that I've ever done.
Today's information economy truly is a meritocracy. If you have a good idea, and can implement it, either by coding it or hiring coders that can, promote it and maintain momentum, you will succeed.
So, Facebook, to me, was an example of a good idea done right. Take an existing place, a college campus, and attach an online social network. Verify identities. Keep the interface simple and clean. Those are the reasons why it took off the way it did.
I didn't care who came up with the idea, but I did (and do) have respect for the people that got it done.
So, when I originally heard about this lawsuit, I was outraged in the same way that I am outraged by many Patent Trolls.
See, a Patent Troll is a paper company. They own patents. They don't manufacture products or sell any services, except they collect license fees for their patents. Many of these companies didn't even invent the things they hold paper on, and even if they do, they never built them, they simply left them in a drawer and waited until someone came up with the same idea, and sued them.
Example? RIM-NTP. I have a BlackBerry mobile device, manufactured by RIM. A few years ago, a company called NTP realized that they held a patent which could be read to include the BlackBerry network, and sued. A jury found for them, and awarded massive damages. Judges threatened to shut down the popular service, all because someone had the idea but never did a damn thing with it.
Facebook is a similar story A few people came up with an idea, asked someone to do all the work, offered to be the "public face" and take credit, and left for vacation. When they came back, the person, who they never officially hired or paid, had actually implemented the idea.
DId they put a single bit of work into getting their idea implemented? No, they just asked someone else to do it for them and assumed they could come back to school and reap the credit. They were so arrogant about it that they didn't even get anything in writing, or even pay this obviously smart person for his work.
So, they sued him. Even though they had no proof, and that their company wasn't even founded until just before the lawsuit, and that they had hired coders to pretty much copy what the other guy had done, they sued.
And now they're getting a settlement, just to avoid the cost of litigation.
I hate people who don't get behind their own ideas. If you believe in something, work at it. That's why the Tech sector has been so successful, because of entrepreneurs and hard working people who get things done, not by those who simply want it done for them.
Lesson? If you want to succeed, stay in the trenches and out of the courtroom. And if you need help, pay them. Get it in writing. Do it right.
Leave a comment