Tyler Howard Winklevoss (born August 21, 1981) is an American investor, founder of Winklevoss Capital Management and Gemini cryptocurrency exchange, and Olympic rower. Winklevoss co-founded HarvardConnection (later renamed ConnectU) along with his brother Cameron Winklevoss and a Harvard classmate of theirs, Divya Narendra. In 2004, the Winklevoss brothers sued Mark Zuckerberg, claiming he stole their ConnectU idea to create the social networking service site Facebook. As a rower, Winklevoss competed in the men's pair rowing event at the 2008 Summer Olympics with his identical twin brother and rowing partner, Cameron.
Early life and education
Tyler Winklevoss was born in Southampton, New York, and raised in Greenwich, Connecticut. He is the son of Carol (née Leonard) and Howard Winklevoss, who is an author and professor of actuarial science at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Winklevoss attended Greenwich Country Day School and graduated from Brunswick School. Winklevoss studied classical piano for 12 years, beginning at age 6. He studied Latin and Ancient Greek in high school. During his junior year, he and his twin brother Cameron founded the crew program.
On June 14, 2002, Winklevoss's older sister, Amanda, died from cardiac arrest induced by drug overdose.
He matriculated to Harvard College in 2000 and majored in economics, earning an AB degree and graduating in 2004. At Harvard, he was a member of the men's varsity crew, the Porcellian Club and the Hasty Pudding Club.
In 2009, Winklevoss began a graduate business study at the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford and completed an MBA in 2010. While at Oxford, he was a member of Christ Church, an Oxford Blue, and rowed in the losing Blue Boat in the 156th Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race.
ConnectU
In December 2002, Winklevoss, along with his brother Cameron Winklevoss and fellow Harvard classmate Divya Narendra, sought a better way to connect with fellow students at Harvard University and other universities. The three conceived of a social network for Harvard students named HarvardConnection; the concept ultimately expanded to other schools around the country. What made ConnectU different from other social media platforms was the need to have a specific domain that matched the 'club' you were getting into, like harvard.edu. The idea was to make each school its own club, in which students could connect and be exclusive, similar to the infamous finals clubs at Harvard. In January 2003, they enlisted the help of fellow Harvard student, programmer and friend Sanjay Mavinkurve to begin building HarvardConnection. Mavinkurve commenced work on HarvardConnection but departed the project in spring 2003 when he graduated and went to work for Google.
After the departure of Mavinkurve, the Winklevosses and Narendra approached Narendra's friend, Harvard student and programmer Victor Gao, to work on HarvardConnection. Gao, a senior in Mather House, opted not to become a partner in the venture, instead agreeing to be paid in a work for hire capacity. He was paid $400 for his work on the website code during the summer and fall of 2003, when he left the project.
Mark Zuckerberg
In November 2003, at the suggestion of Victor Gao, the Winklevosses and Narendra approached Mark Zuckerberg about joining the HarvardConnection team. The previous HarvardConnection programmers had reportedly made progress on coding front-end pages, the registration system, a database, back-end coding, and a way users could connect with each other, which Gao called a "handshake". In early November, Narendra emailed Zuckerberg saying, "We're very deep into developing a site which we would like you to be a part of and ... which we know will make some waves on campus." Within days, Zuckerberg was talking to the HarvardConnection team and preparing to take over programming duties from Gao. On the evening of November 25, 2003, the Winklevosses and Narendra met with Zuckerberg in the dining hall of Harvard's Kirkland House, where they explained to Zuckerberg the HarvardConnection website, the plan to expand to other schools after launch, the confidential nature of the project, and the importance of getting there first. During the meeting, Zuckerberg allegedly entered into an oral contract with Narendra and the Winklevosses and became a partner in HarvardConnection. He was given the private server location and password for the unfinished HarvardConnection website and code, with the understanding that he would finish the programming necessary for launch. Zuckerberg allegedly chose to be compensated through an interest in the enterprise (sweat equity).