Facebook could certainly use a GC right now. The company is dealing with the all too familiar scenario of someone else claiming credit for a successful startup, but with a rather odd twist — this claim is coming from the co-founder of Microsoft. Or so she says.
Deborah Nickerson has been corresponding with Facebook since the spring. In letters, faxes, e-mails and voicemails included in the company’s request for a restraining order, Nickerson blithely acts as if she owns the company, making business and personnel decisions. She signs her letters, “Deborah Nickerson, Phd. Science, and Technology, Doctor of Business, Harvard, and Acadia University, Owner of Facebook Inc., Co-Founder Microsoft Corp.”
A July 31 letter to Facebook CFO Gideon Yu begins, “I regret that you have been confused, however, I am the owner of Facebook Inc. I did not hire you. I have no contact with you. It is not possible that you are in charge of my financial well-being with no knowledge of who I am. I will accept your hostility, and false claims, and no desire to work in my presence, as your resignation.”
She also did something some ex-execs at Facebook probably wish they could do. She canned Mark Zuckerberg, the 23-year-old co-founder and CEO. In an e-mail beginning “Dear Staff: Hi, I hope you are doing well,” Nickerson explains that Zuckerberg didn’t respond to her invitation for a contract renewal and so he’ll be cut loose. “Our profit-sharing agreement is up, I have received no money. He is no longer employed at Facebook.”
The Facebook lawyers got to work quickly on Nickerson. They filed for the restraining order in late July, and it was granted last month by a Santa Clara Superior Court judge. Facebook Deputy General Counsel Mark Howitson says in a declaration that Nickerson was a threat to the company.
“These threats include: statements about the ‘last chance to save Mark Zuckerberg’ unless $50,000 is transferred into her bank account; statements that she is ‘bordering on criminal acts’; and promises to ‘return’ to Facebook in the very near future.”
Howitson says that Nickerson is “clearly delusional” — but it seems like her delusions might be contagious. Howitson says right at the beginning of his declaration, “I am the General Counsel of Facebook Inc.”
Uh-oh, time for another restraining order.
