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Facebook, wary of someone doing to them what they did to MySpace, was going around buying anyone who might be the next thing. It wasn't necessarily clear that I
by henryfjordan 2y ago
Facebook, wary of someone doing to them what they did to MySpace, was going around buying anyone who might be the next thing. It wasn't necessarily clear that Insta would blow up in the way it did but it was clear that was Facebook's motivation for buying.
Also "tiny 1 billion dollar acquisition" is not how I'd characterize what was the largest acquisition FB had made up to that point: https://archive.nytimes.com/dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/04/09/facebook-buys-instagram-for-1-billion/ https://archive.nytimes.com/dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/04/09/...
> Though Facebook is known for smaller acquisitions, Instagram’s surging momentum likely compelled the social network to swiftly put together a billion-dollar offer.
- thegreatpeter 2y agoMira just raised $2B for her company pre-revenue and pre-product.
- wongarsu 2y agoTech valuations were lower across the board in 2012. Meta 15x'd its market cap since then, and Google 10x'd its valuation, despite both companies still holding essentially the same market position today as they did back then. If anything both have a weaker position today than in 2012.
- henryfjordan 2y agoMeta's position is much better, they own Insta and Whatsapp now! Diversification! Google rise makes less sense but their position as king of search seems even more concrete than ever before (although LLMs might threaten that if they don't stay competitive I guess).
- zeroonetwothree 2y agoMeta revenue also went up 15x (actually maybe more?). So implying the valuation has not risen
- borski 2y agoAll funding was lower in 2012, across the board. Moreover, inflation hadn’t skyrocketed, valuations weren’t as foamy, etc.
- thegreatpeter 2y ago$1B in 2012 is $1.4B in 2025. Source: https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/2012?amount=1000000000 https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/2012?amount=10000...
- borski 2y agoPurely from inflation, sure. But an $800k seed round was considered large in 2011/2012. I know because I was there. Now? That would be a small preseed round.