|
Divya Narendra
 |
|
|
Narendra in 2011
|
|
|
Born
|
|
|
Nationality
|
American
|
|
Alma mater
|
Harvard University (A.B.cum laude, Applied Mathematics)
Northwestern University School of Law (J.D.) Kellogg School of Management(MBA) |
|
Occupation
|
Businessman
|
|
Known for
|
|
|
Spouse(s)
|
Phoebe White
|
Divya Narendra
Divya Narendra
Narendra in 2011
Born March 18, 1982
(age 36)
The Bronx, New York, U.S.
Nationality American
Alma mater Harvard
University (A.B.cum laude, Applied Mathematics)
Northwestern University School of Law (J.D.)
Kellogg School of Management (MBA)
Occupation Businessman
Known for ConnectU
Spouse(s) Phoebe
White
Divya Narendra (/nəˈrɛndrə/; 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 Harvard Connection (later renamed
ConnectU) with Harvard University classmates Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler
Winklevoss.
Sum
zero is a company started by Divya Narendra and Aalap Mahadevia. Narendra
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."
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 Harvard
Connection for a time, but has since been discontinued.
Sanjay Mavinkurve was
the first programmer asked to build Harvard Connection. Sanjay commenced work
on Harvard Connection 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 Harvard Connection. 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.
Mark Zuckerberg
In November 2003, upon the referral of Victor GAO, the
Winklevosses and Narendra approached Mark
Zuckerberg about joining
the Harvard Connection team. By this point, the previous Harvard Connection
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 Harvard Connection 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 Harvard Connection 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 Harvard Connection.] He was given the private server location
and password for the unfinished Harvard Connection 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.
Source in taken by wikipedia
Comments
Post a Comment