[stevenj]

I think the Winklevoss twins were rightly ridiculed for thinking they invented Facebook. However, they've made two prescient bets and deserve credit for those: (1) Getting Facebook stock instead of cash as part of their legal settlement; (2) Not only seeing bitcoin's future potential, but investing in it and sticking with it. While the final result on the second one is still TBD, they deserve credit for investing in something at a time when many thought they were stupid for doing so.

[rubicon33]

The deserve credit for what? For getting lucky on FB settlement and BTC rise? I mean, it's not like they actually built something meaningful and productive... Not sure how much "credit" they deserve.

[pmorici]

They didn't just buy btc and sit on it. They also contributed greatly to the ecosystem. They built and run the Gemini Bitcoin exchange, they are trying to get a Bitcoin ETF approved, the CBOE bases their futures pricing on mechanisms they put in place. They have done a ton and built a ton.

[kaspm]

I think the poster meant they should get credit for the investment decisions they made both in facebook stock and bitcoin, not credit for the success of those things

[cslarson]

Gemini is a nice exchange.

[ramphastidae]

I don't really consider it "prescient" to take stock over cash when you're already wealthy. It's more of a privilege.

[seppin]

So was buying a bunch of bitcoin in 2013. It's a bet only a few people could (should have) made.

[maehwasu]

I know plenty of people with jobs that supported them just fine who were able to acquire a lot of bitcoin early. Most of them abandoned it, and it had nothing to do with privilege or immediate need.

[majormajor]

There's a difference between "early" and 2013. In 2013 I knew one person who'd gotten wildly lucky and already retired from buying and mining Bitcoin early, but the people buying hundreds of bitcoin at that point, with the prices in the $100+ range already, were all pretty well-off to have that much disposable cash to toss on a gamble.

Investing 100K then to have 18M now or whatever is a gamble you can only take if you're already doing quite well.

[randomsearch]

Sound like wise people. At least, no-one will be able to judge otherwise for quite a while yet...

[tomaskafka]

I could have bought enough BTC to pay a house in cash today, when I first dabbled with it, even as a freshly working student.

I didn't.

[usrusr]

At the time, did you (not) expect bitcoin to succeed in becoming a payment method, displacing paypal and credit cards, or did you (not) expect bitcoin to become "digital gold", of little use except for being something that most of the time more people want to buy than sell? If it was the former, there is very little to beat yourself up about.

[dmitriid]

> did you (not) expect bitcoin to succeed in becoming a payment method, displacing paypal and credit cards

And it hasn't displaced anything, has it? I still don't expect it to do anything of the sort.

[usrusr]

Kind of my point: I never heard of a bitcoin early adopter who started out saying "sucks for payment, but I'll happily bet on it becoming a self-sustaining rally", but many who initially expected a currency seem to have unknowingly pivoted to the nice feeling of owning ever increasing virtual riches (that will only grow bigger and bigger as long as almost everybody sticks to the program of not touching that wealth, "just one more turn"), with no payment function at all.

[Fnoord]

Rich kids getting rich is an achievement how? That's expected. Rather, it means they didn't fail. I have more respect for someone like J. K. Rowling even though I despise Harry Potter series itself (not for religious reasons, FWIW, just a matter of taste I guess). Getting early in Bitcoin just means they're on the very top of the pyramid scheme. That's not an achievement either, and it remains to be seen if/when that bubble's gonna burst. For me, its just a proof of concept cryptocurrency, and the first. Nothing more. It has no value for me otherwise, just like a tulip.

[mcmacintosh]

While they started ahead of most, I think it's silly to dismiss their returns. They made significant money. Being early in Bitcoin with a significant investment even considering their wealth is very forward thinking.

[Fnoord]

Compared to whom? The other rich people, or all the poor who are the vast majority of this world who cannot even try this? If you compare it to other rich people you're going to need to provide some kind of in depth analysis.

[koonsolo]

Here's why you are getting downvoted:

1. I'm jealous because they were born rich

2. I'm jealous because they made a lot of money with betting correctly on Facebook

3. I'm jealous because they also made a lot of money on correctly betting on Bitcoin

4. I'm jealous because they made the news and are probably getting all the hottest chicks.

So let's all agree to only say negative stuff about them, and blame all their luck on them being born rich.

We are not rich, so therefore are excused for not buying bitcoin at <$10.

[Fnoord]

Ah right, the complaining about moderation card plus the projecting card. You mistake jealousy for seeing something in its relevant context & circumstances.

A tennis player who reaches exactly the same goal as another one (e.g. winning a grand slam) yet without rich parents is more impressive. Their circumstances gave them a harder time in life within the sport, and outside of it. Think of material, training costs, quality of life (that goes far!), etc etc. There's some sports which are simply elitist while others are more free for all due to lower barrier of entry.

Speculating with Bitcoin, including starting a business around such speculation in order to stimulate your speculation (huh-huh, sounds less brilliant than it is now) requires savings. If you got 100M USD and you spend 100k (0,1%) on speculation there's virtually nothing you will lose. Because even if that 100k evaporates, you're still a multi-millionaire. Compare that to a poor, hard working woman from Bangladesh who's making our Nike shoes so Bob can win his grand slams. She can only speculate with say a dollar, and that's a huge cut in her budget which she'll feel for time to come. Oh wait, she doesn't even have a computer to start with. Even if she did, 0,1% of her entire savings is still essentially nothing cause like the vast majority of people on earth she either cannot afford to spend that 0,1% or it isn't much so doesn't yield much. Like, she can't even afford fee costs with that. So much for this world-wide cryptocurrency called Bitcoin.

The fact is that the vast majority of people on earth, and even the vast majority of people in rich countries such as the United States cannot afford to speculate with large sums of money. And if they did, they'd be belly up if their speculating would go wrong.

These factors make their achievements a lot less impressive. Note that I'm not saying "unimpressive"; (and I'll repeat once more): I am saying a lot less impressive. Subtle difference.

And fuck being reliant on luck. That is a silly excuse from losers which I heard in gaming all the time (the other one is "not having their day"). Skill is what matters. Good players work around bad luck turning the odds in their favor. They end up with a good long-term ratio or track record. Provided the playing field is equal. The playing field in life is not equal. Some people are born rich, and that gives them an ample amount of chances to score in life. The Winklevoss Twins are a perfect example of that, and that makes them a boring example. The life stories of personae who became rich and famous via hard work and who wasn't rich to start with, like J.K. Rowling, are much more inspiring for the general population.

People are trying their luck all the time in the lottery. They're losing, but false hope keeps that "game" alive. By ignoring the circumstances of the Winklevoss brothers whilst articulating their successes, you're doing the same. Please stop it.

(And that's a post written without going much into the problem of speculation regarding Bitcoin, ignoring issues like Mt. Gox and Tether.)

[googletazer]

Anybody with a computer/graphics card and an interest in technology could have money on Bitcoin and countless other cryptocurrencies. Neets from /g made money on it without spending a dime. Where were you?

[Fnoord]

It isn't about me, it is about the average world citizen.

You assume one wanted to be part of this specific pyramid scheme. I already experimented with another in the '00s and figured that I'm not fit for MLM (it involved sales though), or pyramid schemes for that matter. I'm a terrible salesman because I am too honest and extensive. I didn't expect the world would fall for this pyramid scheme either. Cause frankly, I found it sucked, cause the various times I checked I couldn't use it as currency anywhere (still pretty much true). Which would mean I'm locked, sitting on gold nobody wants to have. What good is a currency you cannot use? You never know beforehand for which ones they're gonna fall for and which ones they won't. Furthermore, it isn't anonymous either, so you can't use it to avoid taxes. At this point, its still difficult to execute transactions due to latency and cost. Its also difficult to find a shop which accepts it as currency.

The only thing Bitcoin has going for it, is that its the first cryptocurrency. The flaws it has cannot be solved easily without a full reset, or consensus of a majority. Plus, the question is if people are responsible enough to own a hardware wallet.

So yeah, what I was doing with my savings is I was investing and I had it on the bank. Which are both luxuries a lot of people in this world cannot afford. And yet, we're talking pennies compared to what Winklevoss owned the moment they were born. All cause of mom 'n pop. You cannot just take that out of the equation.

[bogomipz]

I'm not sure how "prescient" not accepting the first settlement offer is.

Also I'm not sure how "prescient" their seeing the potential of bitcoin was. They were literally sitting on a beach in Ibiza when a stranger approached them and told them about investing in bitcoin.

This same stranger fom the beach them puts them in the touch with the Bitinstant folks. When the brother meet Charlie Shrem and Erik Voorhes from Bitinstant they observe how much those two believe in the potential of bitcoin. See:

https://qz.com/405950/ibiza-the-hamptons-downtown-manhattan-...

[drewvolpe]

Early bitcoiners met with a lot of people with the means to invest. Almost all of them passed. Committing to investing and sticking with it through the ups and downs takes good judgement, courage, and healthy dose of luck.

It's no different from startups. A lot of investors were pitched by AirBnB and almost all of them passed. Fred Wilson from USV even had PaulG badgering him with emails telling him to invest and he still passed.

[bogomipz]

Please reread my comment. I was refuting this insistence that these two people were "prescient" when they weren't. They didn't have their finger on the pulse of crypto currencies and their potential. It was their dumb luck that some stranger talked up bitcoin to them while they sitting on a beach in Spain.

All this talk about how "prescient" they are and how they have now been "vindicated" is all pretty ridiculous. This is revisionist history. The NYTimes piece reads like a press release.

There 's a fair amount of luck involved in investing. They've been lucky twice. You notice there is no mention in this fluff piece about the investments they have made that have gone south because.

[wslh]

Yes, I really think that the Winklevoss twins deserve a prequel and sequel of The Social Network movie and also directed by David Fincher. There are two rare events. I assume the Winklevoss twins were exposed to less risky ventures in their life but they chose the risky ones.

[kennywinker]

It's not really risky if you're already rich and you only stand to be "slightly less rich" if you bet wrong.

[raverbashing]

It's not one or the other

If you settlement was 10Mi (example), sell 1Mi shares in cash: congrats, you're rich now, then invest the remaining 9Mi in higher risk stuff

[kennywinker]

The impression I got from the documentary film "The Social Network" was that they were already pretty well off even before the fb settlement.

[jstanley]

Absolutely. The Social Network made them out to be moneygrubbing fools, but everything else I've read shows them to be actually quite intelligent and prescient.

[chrisbennet]

They competed in the 2008 Olympics. In my book, that is, without a doubt, “proof of work”. You don’t get to the Olympics without a fantastic amount of work.

[Fnoord]

If I, or virtually the vast majority of people who aren't among the ~0,01% richest in the world, didn't have to work one day in my life in order to sustain myself I could also focus on the Olympics.

Ergo; in the context we discuss, that's less of an achievement for rich American kids than for poor people.

Therefore not a good delimiter.

And certainly not inspiring. The circumstances for the vast majority of people on earth are different. To start with, their financial circumstances.

[edanm]

Are you seriously saying that competing in the Olympics is not impressive?

Less impressive because they're rich, sure, I'm with you. It makes it easier. But dismissing it as not a good delimiter and not inspiring is pretty ridiculous.

[Fnoord]

Whether you or I find it impressive or not is a personal value you or I have.

For me, it depends on the sport. Some sports are simply elitist. Cricket is an example, tennis is another, hockey yet another. There's many more. You could even see the very notion of sport is elitist. Poor people need to focus on the bacon alone.

Furthermore, when I learn about the circumstances of certain sports(wo)men I get touched. Lance Armstrong was an example of that because of his illness. Unfortunately he was a fraud, and I watched him win the Tour de France 7 times. We had Sochi as well, where so many Russians suddenly were winning while normally that isn't the case, now is it?

Then there's the stories of poor people winning in sports. Those move me as well, but they seem to be rather rare.

These 3 realizations destroyed a lot of the respect I had for Olympics or sports in general. Even though I am a hobbyist sporter myself (jogging), and have been a competing gamer in the past (the same is true there: if you got rich parents you're one step ahead). Its a personal value, YMMV.

[chrisbennet]

Accomplishing difficult things from a disadvantaged position is more impressive than those accomplished by someone without those disadvantages, but it doesn't mean the latter accomplishments are not impressive.

The world is full of people who want to tear down other peoples accomplishments - "Accomplishment X isn't that impressive because of starving people in country Y." Using that standard, nothing done by anyone who "won the ovarian lottery" by being born in a 1st world country would qualify as "impressive".

When faced with a beautiful sunset, you can say "Meh, I'm not impressed. The sunsets in Hawaii are much better." or you can appreciate the beautiful sunset for what it is. The latter approach is happier path in life I think.

[perseusprime11]

I still can’t get my head around the fact that Mark stole their idea and ran with it, and it was the twins who were made to look evil. What if this happens to any of us?

[jhall1468]

Ideas are worthless. Undoubtedly he took their concept, but I sincerely doubt he developed a complete copy of their idea. Whether or not their idea would have worked is up for debate. But it's a pointless debate, because ideas are worthless... Unless of course, they are patented.

[inciampati]

Knowing them, knowing him, having been there at the time, I can only confirm that they designed the entire rise of Facebook using the principle of exclusivity to build interest in users 1) outside Harvard, 2) outside the ivies, 3) outside colleges, etc. Zuckerberg was right (edit: correctly saw he was able, not morally right)toun with their ideas, and deserves credit for executing them to perfection.

At the time I thought they were foolish for not having a contract and for not having built up enough technical skill to understand that Zuckerberg was taking them for a ride. This is definitely true, but they corrected the problem and have recovered brilliantly.

[perseusprime11]

So tomorrow if you hire couple of engineers to build a gaming app, are you saying you will fine if those engineers launch the app by themselves?

[chrisco255]

That's the risk you take in software in general. What stopped Instagram from copying Snapchat? Nothing. Micrsoft used to snuff out competitors in the office suite space all the time. MSN copied AIM. IE copied Netscape. It happens. You either work with founders you can trust or you don't.

[ameister14]

Sure, but that doesn't mean that if you hire engineers who then screw you over you're a bad person and they're heroes.

[majormajor]

What if your game idea is half-baked, incomplete, and generally kinda crappy, the engineers realize you don't have a complete idea, but then go on and develop a fully-baked similar idea on their own later, and it becomes a hit?

Let's add some ambiguity to our "poor genius"/"brilliant thief" scenario :)

[jhall1468]

No I'd take the the court, because I wouldn't do that without a contract.

[lerie82]

I don't think it made them seem unintelligent at all, I love that freaking movie, inspires me to write software every time. However, I do think it did make them look bad, even if they aren't but then again it was made from the POV of Facebook and not Winklevoss

[randomsearch]

How well you think bitcoin’s potential worked out is likely to depend on exactly when in the next six months you decide to sell.

Then again, being able to anticipate irrational investment in bitcoin is arguably also a skill, assuming it’s not just dumb luck.

[gfody]

if you sell in the next six months you lose. at this point crypto is a hedge against our mad max style post apocalyptic future.

[majormajor]

how does computing-resource-and-network-intensive digital currency have any value at all in most Mad Max post-civilizational-collapse scenarios?

[gfody]

the resource-intensive aspects all fall off with population as difficulty plummets

[therein]

I'm sure we will be worried with restoring the Bitcoin network in an apocalyptic event. All 153GB of it will be very useful to maintain. What incentive do the survivors have to preserve the history anyway?

[randomsearch]

As much as I disapprove of throwaway comments, this did make me chuckle. It does also make a serious point.