Divya Narendra

Divya Narendra (born March 18, 1982) is an American businessman. He is the CEO and co-founder of SumZero along with Harvard classmate Aalap Mahadevia. He also co-founded HarvardConnection (later renamed ConnectU) with Harvard University classmates Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss.

Divya Narendra was born in the Bronx, New York and raised in Bayside, Queens. He is the eldest son of two immigrant doctors from India. Narendra scored a near-perfect SAT and graduated from Townsend Harris High School in Flushing, Queens before attending Harvard University in 2000, from which he graduated with an A.B. cum laude in applied mathematics in 2004.

Narendra graduated from Northwestern University School of Law and the Kellogg School of Management in 2012, earning a J.D. and an MBA.

SumZero is a company started by Divya Narendra and Aalap Mahadevia. Divya described how he came up with the concept in an interview. "SumZero was initially inspired by a need for a simple, centralized, and searchable platform in which professional investors working at hedge funds, mutual funds, and private equity funds could share rigorous investment ideas and network with one another. Since then the concept has expanded and SumZero is taking steps to bring a subset of high-level investment research to the investing community at large."

Sanjay Mavinkurve was supposed to begin building HarvardConnection. Sanjay commenced work on HarvardConnection but left the project in the spring of 2003 when he graduated and went to work for Google.

After the departure of Sanjay 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, had opted not to become a full partner in the venture, instead agreeing to be paid in a work for hire capacity on a rolling basis. He was paid $400 for his work on the website code during the summer and fall of 2003, but he excused himself thereafter due to personal obligations.

ConnectU (originally Harvard Connection) was a social networking website launched on May 21, 2004, that was founded by Harvard students Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra in December 2002. Users could add people as friends, send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Users were placed in networks based upon the domain name associated with the email address they used for registration. The site subsequently relaunched and became an active online community at http://www.harvardconnection.co/ for a time, but has since been discontinued.

Mark Zuckerberg

In November 2003, upon the referral of Victor Gao, the Winklevosses and Narendra approached Mark Zuckerberg about joining the HarvardConnection team. By this point, the previous HarvardConnection programmers had already made progress on a large chunk of the 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 an enthusiastic 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 in the form of sweat equity.

On November 30, 2003, Zuckerberg told Cameron Winklevoss in an email that he did not expect completion of the project to be difficult. Zuckerberg writes: "I read over all the stuff you sent and it seems like it shouldn't take too long to implement, so we can talk about that after I get all the basic functionality up tomorrow night." The next day, on December 1, 2003, Zuckerberg sent another email to the HarvardConnection team. "I put together one of the two registration pages so I have everything working on my system now. I'll keep you posted as I patch stuff up and it starts to become completely functional." On December 4, 2003, Zuckerberg writes: "Sorry I was unreachable tonight. I just got about three of your missed calls. I was working on a problem set." On December 10, 2003: "The week has been pretty busy, so I haven't gotten a chance to do much work on the site or even think about it really, so I think it's probably best to postpone meeting until we have more to discuss. I'm also really busy tomorrow so I don't think I'd be able to meet then anyway." A week later: "Sorry I have not been reachable for the past few days. I've basically been in the lab the whole time working on a cs problem set which I'm still not finished with." On December 17, 2003, Zuckerberg met with the Winklevosses and Narendra in his dorm room, allegedly confirming his interest and assuring them that the site was almost complete. On the whiteboard in his room, Zuckerberg allegedly had scrawled multiple lines of code under the heading “Harvard Connection.” However, this would be the only time they saw any of his work. On January 8, 2004, Zuckerberg emailed to say he was "completely swamped with work [that] week" but had "made some of the changes ... and they seem[ed] to be working great" on his computer. He said he could discuss the site starting the following Tuesday, on January 13, 2004. On January 11, 2004, Zuckerberg registered the domain name thefacebook.com. On January 12, 2004, Zuckerberg e-mailed Eduardo Saverin, saying that the site [thefacebook.com] was almost complete and that they should discuss marketing strategies. Two days later, on January 14, 2004, Zuckerberg met again with the HarvardConnection team. However, he allegedly never mentioned registering the domain name thefacebook.com nor a competing social networking website, rather he reported progress on HarvardConnection, told them he would continue to work on it, and would email the group later in the week. On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launched thefacebook.com, a social network for Harvard students, designed to expand to other schools around the country.

On February 6, 2004, the Winklevosses and Narendra first-learned of thefacebook.com while reading a press release in the Harvard student newspaper The Harvard Crimson. According to Gao, who looked at the HarvardConnection code afterward, Zuckerberg had left the HarvardConnection code incomplete and non-functional, with a registration that did not connect with the back-end connections. On February 10, 2004, the Winklevosses and Narendra sent Zuckerberg a cease and desist letter. They also asked the Harvard administration to act on what they viewed as a violation of the university’s honor code and student handbook. They lodged a complaint with the Harvard Administrative Board and university president Larry Summers; however, both viewed the matter to be outside the university's jurisdiction. President Summers advised the HarvardConnection team to take their matter to the courts.

Leaked instant messages

Between November 30, 2003 and February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg exchanged a total of 52 emails with the HarvardConnection team and engaged in multiple in-person meetings. During the same period of time, Zuckerberg engaged in multiple electronic instant message communications with people outside the HarvardConnection team. On March 5, 2010, certain electronic instant messages from Mark Zuckerberg's hard drive were leaked to the public. On September 20, 2010, Facebook confirmed the authenticity of these leaked instant messages in a New Yorker article.

Later, a partnership allegedly formed between i2hub, a popular peer-to-peer service at the time, and ConnectU. The partnership, called The Winklevoss Chang Group, jointly advertised their properties through bus advertisements as well as press releases. i2hub integrated its popular software with ConnectU's website, as part of the partnership. The team also jointly launched several projects and initiatives.

Facebook lawsuits

In 2004, ConnectU filed a lawsuit against Facebook alleging that creator Mark Zuckerberg had broken an oral contract with them. The suit alleged that Zuckerberg had copied their idea and illegally used source code intended for the website he was hired to create. Facebook countersued in regards to Social Butterfly, a project put out by the Winklevoss Chang Group, an alleged partnership between ConnectU and i2hub, another campus service. It named among the defendants ConnectU, Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, Divya Narendra, and Wayne Chang, founder of i2hub. A settlement agreement for both cases was reached in February 2008, reportedly valued at $65 million. However, in May 2010, it was reported that ConnectU is accusing Facebook of securities fraud on the value of the stock that was part of the settlement and wants to get the settlement undone. According to ConnectU's allegations, the value of the stock was worth $11 million instead of $45 million that Facebook presented at the time of settlement. This meant the settlement value, at the time, was $31 million, instead of the $65 million. On August 26, 2010, The New York Times reported that Facebook shares were trading at $76 per share in the secondary market, putting the total settlement value at close to $120 million. If the lawsuit to adjust the settlement to match the difference goes through, the value will quadruple to over $466 million. According to Steven M. Davidoff, "Facebook never represented its valuation in this negotiation, and so there is no prior statement that the company needs to correct."

Quinn Emanuel lawsuits

One of ConnectU's law firms, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, disclosed the confidential settlement amount in marketing material by printing "WON $65 million settlement against Facebook". Quinn Emanuel is seeking $13 million of the settlement. ConnectU fired Quinn Emanuel and sued the law firm for malpractice. On August 25, 2010, an arbitration panel ruled that Quinn Emanuel "earned its full contingency fee". It also found that Quinn Emanuel committed no malpractice.

The Winklevoss Chang Group lawsuit

On December 21, 2009, i2hub founder Wayne Chang and the i2hub Organization launched a lawsuit against ConnectU and its founders, seeking 50% of the settlement. The complaint says, "The Winklevosses and Howard Winklevoss filed [a] patent application, U.S. Patent Application No 20060212395, on or around March 15, 2005, but did not list Chang as a co-inventor." It also states, "Through this litigation, Chang asserts his ownership interest in The Winklevoss Chang Group and ConnectU, including the settlement proceeds." Lee Gesmer of the firm Gesmer Updegrove posted the detailed 33-page complaint online.

On May 13, 2011, it was reported that Judge Peter Lauriat made a ruling against the Winklevosses. Chang's case against them could proceed. The Winklevosses had argued that the court lacks jurisdiction because the settlement with Facebook has not been distributed and therefore Chang hasn't suffered any injury. Judge Lauriat wrote, "The flaw in this argument is that defendants appear to conflate loss of the settlement proceed with loss of rights. Chang alleges that he has received nothing in return for the substantial benefits he provided to ConnectU, including the value of his work, as well as i2hub's users and goodwill." Lauriat also wrote that, although Chang's claims to the settlement are "too speculative to confer standing, his claims with respect to an ownership in ConnectU are not. They constitute an injury separate and distinct from his possible share of the settlement proceeds. The court concludes that Chang has pled sufficient facts to confer standing with respect to his claims against the Winklevoss defendants."

Divya, of Indian ethnicity, is portrayed by the half Italian-quarter Hong Kongese Max Minghella in The Social Network (2010), a film directed by David Fincher about the founding of Facebook. He said that he was "initially surprised" to see himself portrayed by a non-Indian actor but also admitted that "Max did a good job in pushing the dialogue forward and creating a sense of urgency in what was a very frustrating period."