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If it isn't clear, they acquired the Meta.com and trademarks in 2017 with their non profit: https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/23/chan-zuckerberg-initiative-meta/ h
by jimhi 5y ago
If it isn't clear, they acquired the Meta.com and trademarks in 2017 with their non profit: https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/23/chan-zuckerberg-initiative-meta/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/23/chan-zuckerberg-initiative...
And today we see the domain points directly to their for-profit company which they may not have paid a "fair" price. I'm sure it wasn't so clearly planned, but it certainly seems like a conflict of interest.
These types of domains can go for 6+ figures which seems like a drop in the bucket for Facebook.
EDIT: I was mistaken. As several pointed out - The initiative is not a non profit at all. The domain is more of an opportunistic move.
I'm still not sure how happy I would be if my company was acquired with the promise of "making my research search engine free to all" only to be shutdown down and used to help Facebook PR problems and market cap 4 years later.
- duud 5y agoMeta.com is a 7-8 figure domain in this market. This year metaverse.io sold for $175k and meta.so sold for $149k.
- jimhi 5y agoThe value of domains at these prices are like startups. They are bought, not sold and based entirely on if a company with money wants it badly enough. I agree on your assessment that it would likely have been 7 figures. 8 if they knew it was Facebook. For reference, I have bought/sold ZipX.com, Pedal.com, Shotput.com, etc
- rnotaro 5y agoI don't know how much you sold shotput.com but it's still in sale.
- GDC7 5y ago> The value of domains at these prices are like startups. They are bought, not sold and based entirely on if a company with money wants it badly enough. Except for used cars, real estate, bonds and stocks... every other asset is "bought and not sold" these days. Sellers of an asset which is not in the list above don't even have a platform to tell the world that they are selling that particular thing.
- jazzyjackson 5y agoI figure they wanted to announce a rebrand and dug around in their box of acquisitions and said “hey, meta.com, neat!”
- datavirtue 5y agoIndeed, it sounds like an eighth grade project.
- neximo64 5y agoWhen you sell its not yours anymore. You could keep 5% as "schucks insurance" if youre unsure youre being tricked.
- bookofjoe 5y ago"Owning something means you can sell it."—anonymous
- MildlySerious 5y agoI was recently quoted 2m for a 6 letter .com of a dictionary word when I inquired about it. For a 6 letter .sh, also a dictionary word, I paid 250 bucks.
- robtaylor 5y agoYou also now have a XXXXXX.sh rather than XXXXXX.com :) Good domains on .com or relevant local tld such as .co.uk are worth snapping up.
- MildlySerious 5y agoYou're right of course, I wasn't trying to weigh them against each other. The .sh is for a pet project. I just added it to the comment because I happened to have that data point available from around the same time.
- dmd 5y agoI have a two letter .org but in 25 years of using it as my primary domain name not one financial offer for it has turned out to be in good faith / not spam.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- moksly 5y agoI’m not sure 7 or 8 figures really matter to a company the size of Facebook. I worked in a medium sized municipality in Denmark, and when your budget is 9 billion Danish KR, well let’s just say that you treat expenses differently in enterprise, and we were still a small player compared to our bigger partners on the state level who could sign contracts larger than our entire budget without batting an eye. (I’m not English, maybe batting an eye is the wrong expression, if so sorry!) I’m not saying it wasn’t planned, but it may just be a “happy” coincidence.
- Thev00d00 5y agoI'm British; we would say "batting an eyelid". So correct usage in my book!
- jjallen 5y agoIn American English we just say "batting an eye".
- headsoup 5y agoThat would hurt!
- jjallen 5y agoYes, I have been wondering what that even means. So many idioms and phrases don't make sense (ignoring the fact that some are historically outdated which is the cause of some of them not making sense)
- bookofjoe 5y agohttps://www.idioms.online/not-bat-an-eye/ https://www.idioms.online/not-bat-an-eye/
- robwwilliams 5y agoTry this old idiomatic phrase: “beating the boundary”. Once you have made your guess as to the meaning, then and only then link to Wikipedia for a marvelous explanation from a not-so merry old England.
- lmc 5y agoCZI is an LLC funded by 99% of the Zuckerbergs' FB shares[1]. Isn't the domain transfer effectively just an admin exercise? [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-markzuckerberg-baby-idUSKBN0TK5UG20151202 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-markzuckerberg-baby-idUSK...
- mike_d 5y agoIf CZI were a non-profit they would have lost that status with this transaction. Per the IRS: "activities should not serve the private interests, or private benefit, of any individual or organization more than insubstantially." They may have exploited the generally held assumption of being a public benefit organization to gain an advantage in the sale of the domain. For example if the Gates Foundation approached me about one of my domains and it later ended up in the hands of Microsoft, I'd be quite upset.
- jefftk 5y agoThe Gates foundation is a 501c3, not an LLC.
- mike_d 5y agoExactly?
- whoknowswhat11 5y agoAbsolutely false on the loss of status. Folks quoting law here on HN tend to ironically be wrong about how things work. If you can afford some lawyers this is routinely done at varying degrees of morality and fairness.
- KennyBlanken 5y agoAcquiring a major asset with a 501c3's funds and then selling it to a director or officer below market value is very clearly private inurement and absolutely should result in their "charity" getting its status revoked. If you have evidence otherwise, present it.
- colechristensen 5y agoIf you don’t want to dislike what is done with “your” company, don’t sell. It often seems like the ability to sell companies isn’t in the best interests of a very large number of people.
- cma 5y ago> The initiative is not a non profit at all. Since his wife is involved it still seems like corrupt self-dealing. What kind of public corporation owns a "Wife-Founder Initiative"? Are these monarchies?
- whoknowswhat11 5y agoUm, they are married and they are his shares? Many people share resources with their partners? Only on HN is this "corrupt self dealing".
- cma 5y agoYou can't just do favors for family with the corporate treasury because you own some large part of the shares or even because you have voting control. Minority shareholders have rights. It isn't his piggybank. Do you think a corporate treasury could be used to directly throw a CEO's daughter a wedding celebration? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiduciary#Fiduciary_duties_under_Delaware_corporate_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiduciary#Fiduciary_duties_und... "The duty of loyalty requires control persons to look to the interests of the company and its other owners and not to their personal interests. In general, they cannot use their positions of trust, confidence and inside knowledge to further their own private interests or approve an action that will provide them with a personal benefit (such as continued employment) that does not primarily benefit the company or its other owners."
- whoknowswhat11 5y agoYes you can. If you own the shares, you can give them to someone, or to an LLC. That is what happened here. You may be confusing spending corporate money on an initiative with the stock used to setup CZI (which was Zuckerberg's to do with as he wished). BTW - in CA which is a community property state, this type of thing is not uncommon - all sorts of trusts, business etc take donated shares (sometimes unsold for tax reasons). In terms of facebook - worth noting that Zuckerberg controls the voting power. This came up when facebook "overpaid" for instragram by giving a small company of 13 employees $1B, which was unheard of at the time. This was a major corporate governance scandal in some circles because the board wasn't consulted. So I read plenty of notes like yours! Outrage! "CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the company’s largest acquisition ever without consulting his board of directors, according to an account in today’s Wall Street Journal." I mention this because you would be amazed at what even companies without voting control in one person's hands will let an executive do if the executive claims it will advance the interests of the company. Own race cars or teams, lease jets, start a research institute. All allowed in most cases even in other companies (and yes, spouses are often in the mix). Anyways, there will be another case soon on this - Tesla shareholders (some) are suing claiming Elons plans / purchase of solar and doing the solar energy business was self dealing (Solar City was basically bust, but Elon wanted to move fast, knew and trusted many of the solar city folks, so bought them instead of some chinese company that might have been better on paper). I think the case is weak, but we will see. The disclosure here that matters potentially is a warning to purchasers of Facebook shares: "As a stockholder, even a controlling stockholder, Mr. Zuckerberg is entitled to vote his shares, and shares over which he has voting control as a result of voting agreements, in his own interests, which may not always be in the interests of our stockholders generally" This metaverse thing is going to be another bet not everyone would go along with, and independent investors ALREADY voted Zuckerberg off as board chair - which made no difference as he could ignore their wishes.
- sova 5y agoOnce you sell, do you really have the sway to demand an outcome? Get that in writing, signed, and notarized or "forget about it."