4 ms·

> Zuckerberg turned down a $2BN offer from Yahoo, so clearly he believed he could make the company worth more than that. I thought that Yahoo offered $1B and M

by anamax 16y ago

> Zuckerberg turned down a $2BN offer from Yahoo, so clearly he believed he could make the company worth more than that. I thought that Yahoo offered $1B and Microsoft (later) offered several (15?) billion. Note that Zuckerberg may have interests other than money. For example, he may be happier running a company worth $3B than having $5B.

tansey 16y ago
Fair enough, I believe it was only a rumored $2BN offer from Yahoo.
mbreese 16y ago
If I'm remembering correctly, the Microsoft "offer" was an investment that valued the company at $15B, not a complete offer.
ctkrohn 16y ago
Microsoft didn't offer 15bn... they invested a couple hundred million (~250mm, if I recall) to buy a certain percent of the company. That led to a 15bn valuation.
- hugh3 16y ago
  They also got something else (an exclusive contract of some kind, I can't remember exactly) for that $250 million, so the $15B valuation was always phony.
- anamax 16y ago
  From http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/06/technology/facebook_excerpt_full.fortune/ http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/06/technology/facebook_excerpt_... But Ballmer had come with something more sweeping in mind. "Why don't we just buy you for $15 billion?" he replied, according to a very knowledgeable source. Zuckerberg was unmoved even by this offer. "I don't want to sell the company unless I can keep control," said Zuckerberg, as he always did in such situations. Ballmer took this reply as a sort of challenge. He went back to Microsoft's headquarters and concocted a plan intended to acquire Facebook in stages over a period of years to enable Zuckerberg to keep calling the shots. Zuckerberg also rejected that offer. The deal that was struck was for $250M at a $15B valuation