Winklevoss Twins Go Nuts
Well, no, they haven’t gone nuts. But Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss — the twin brothers who claimed in court that a certain Harvard classmate stole their idea for a website that came to be known as Facebook — have now turned up in a commercial for Wonderful Pistachios.
In the spot, the two brothers appear in matching suits and bright green ties. One of them cracks open a pistachio nut and the other says, “Hey, that’s a good idea.”
“What?” says the other.
“Cracking them like that. Could be huge.”
“Think someone will steal it?”
You get the joke. The Winklevosses (or “Winklevii”, as Jesse Eisenberg, playing Mark Zuckerberg, calls them in “ The Social Network“) were offered a $65 million settlement by Facebook in 2008 to go away. They wanted more, but in July a federal district judge in Boston dismissed their lawsuit.
In addition to the Winklevoss brothers, Roll Global, the company that also sells Fiji Water and Pom juice, has enlisted an broad assortment of famous characters to promote its pistachio nuts, including Kermit the Frog, Khloe Kardashian Odom and a character from the Angry Birds video game.
Do the Winklevosses really need the money? The 2008 settlement offer included $45 million in Facebook stock, which has not yet gone public. By one estimate, it’s since grown in value to $160 million because of Facebook’s success.
So nuts to you.