Cameron Winklevoss

Cameron Howard Winklevoss (born August 21, 1981) is an American cryptocurrency investor, former Olympic rower, and cofounder of Winklevoss Capital Management and Gemini cryptocurrency exchange.

He enrolled at Harvard University in 2000 for his undergraduate studies where he 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.

On June 14, 2002, Winklevoss's older sister, Amanda, died from cardiac arrest induced by drug overdose.

In December 2002, Winklevoss, along with his brother Tyler 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 final 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.

In 2004, the Winklevoss twins sued Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, claiming he stole their ConnectU idea to create the social networking site Facebook.

In addition to ConnectU, Winklevoss also co-founded the social media website Guest of a Guest with Rachelle Hruska.

Cameron Winklevoss was born in Southampton, New York, and raised in Greenwich, Connecticut.

He is the son of Carol (née Leonard) and Howard Edward Winklevoss Jr.; Howard was an adjunct professor of actuarial science at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

At an early age, he (left-handed) and his identical "mirror-image" twin brother Tyler (right-handed) demonstrated a pattern of teamwork, building Lego together and playing musical instruments.

At the age of 13, they taught themselves HTML and started a web-page company, which developed websites for businesses.

Winklevoss went to the Greenwich Country Day School before attending the Brunswick School for high school.

He showed a fondness for the classics in high school, studying Latin and Ancient Greek.

During his junior year, he co-founded the crew program with Tyler.

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, Winston Williams, and Wayne Chang, founder of i2hub.

He competed in the men's pair rowing event at the 2008 Summer Olympics with his rowing partner and identical twin brother, Tyler Winklevoss.

Winklevoss and his brother are known for co-founding HarvardConnection (later renamed ConnectU) along with Harvard classmate Divya Narendra.

A settlement agreement for both cases was reached in February 2008, reportedly valued at $65 million.

In 2009, Winklevoss entered the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford where he obtained an MBA in 2010.

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."

Additionally, Cameron has publicly announced that he fully supports Facebook.

After defeat at the appellate court level, the Winklevoss twins decided to petition the Supreme Court of the United States to hear the case, but in June 2011 announced that they had changed their minds.

One of ConnectU's law firms, Quinn Emanuel, inadvertently 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.

While at Oxford he was an Oxford Blue, and rowed, in a losing effort, in the Blue Boat in the 156th Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race.