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July 20, 2011 4:31 PM
The Tie and Jacket Problem
Apparently at one point during his brief, storied period at the president of Harvard University the erstwhile United States Secretary of the Treasury, Lawrence Summers, had a meeting with Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (right).
The Winklevoss twins, who claim that Mark Zuckerberg stole their idea and used it to create Facebook, talked with Summers at one point to see what he could do. It didn’t go so well.
According to a piece by Ryan Tate at Gawker:
Asked about the time memorialized in The Social Network when the Winklevoss twins visited his office to demand the school take action against Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for purportedly stealing the twins’ idea, Summers told Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference that “rarely have I encountered such swagger… one of the things you learn as a college president is that if an undergraduate is wearing a tie and jacket on Thursday afternoon at 3 o clock, there are two possibilities. One is that they are looking for a job and have an interview; the other is that they are an asshole. This was the latter case.”
He wasn’t interested in helping them much; they later sued Zuckerberg for $140 million.
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zandru on July 20, 2011 6:59 PM:
A third, more plausible reason that two undergraduates were wearing suits and ties would be that they were visiting the college president in his office.
exlibra on July 20, 2011 7:38 PM:
Summers, more than anyone else, should be able to recognize a swaggering asshole; it takes one to know one, and all that jazz...
E.Todd on July 21, 2011 4:55 AM:
No, the second possibility has been confirmed by the Winklevii. The Winklevii are exactly as Summer described.
CJColucci on July 21, 2011 9:19 AM:
A third, more plausible reason that two undergraduates were wearing suits and ties would be that they were visiting the college president in his office.
Doesn't strike me as plausible at all, but given that my college experience is somewhat dated, I'd defer to the experience of an actual college president.