The Winklevii Are Still Trying to Create Facebook
Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, the Harvard graduate twins who just couldn't stop suing Mark Zuckerberg for creating Facebook, have finally found their calling: creating a Facebook-like website. In some sweet twist of fate, they're even using money from the $65 million that Facebook forked over at the conclusion of a years-long litigation battle to do it. "We want to get involved and really roll up our sleeves," Tyler Winklevoss told The Wall Street Journal.
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The twins' new project, SumZero, isn't necessarily a Facebook competitor. It's a social network for investors founded by their long lost friend and fellow Harvard alum Divya Narendra. (He's the third guy hassling Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network.) Tyler and Cameron aren't involved in the day-to-day, but they did invest $1 million in the business. SumZero is the first investment made by their new venture fund, Winklevoss Capital, created in February.
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Much like Facebook in its early days, not everyone can join SumZero -- apparently Narendra personally reviews the profile of every new user and only "buy side" investors are allowed to join. Perhaps as a result, the four-year-old site only has 7,500 users. The Journal likens these restrictions to the early days of Facebook when you needed a .edu email address to create a profile on the site. Outsiders can use SumZero, too, but only if they pay a $129 a month fee to get access to members' investment ideas.
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It's unlikely that SumZero will ever grow to become the world-changing force that Facebook has. But at least the new adventure has given them something to do this year, after they abandoned their bid for the London Olympics. "The time was right for us to pursue our other passions," Tyler Winklevoss said earlier this year. Among those passions not pursued, let us gladly remind you, is their hobby of suing Facebook. Seriously, that got really ridiculous.
