horatiumocian

6 ms·

1.
by horatiumocian 10y ago
Just a small correction: Microsoft bought Skype from Silver Lake / Andreessen Horowitz, not EBay. At the time Microsoft bought it, Skype seemed to prepare for an IPO, although I'm not sure how willing they were to go through with
2.
by horatiumocian 11y ago
I assume he was also a Lyft driver and was accepting rides on both apps.
3.
by horatiumocian 14y ago
LinkedIn has generated $500M+ revenue in 2011 and will generate more than $900M this year. And they market value is $13B. So you can hardly call them "vaporware with no revenue".
4.
by horatiumocian 14y ago
Probably he means that the data from the backup is not up-to-date (i.e. not actual).
5.
by horatiumocian 14y ago
I think that Sheryl Sandberg has options worth close to $1B, but either they are not vested yet, or she didn't exercise them. Still not as much as Moskovitz or Parker, but probably more than she would get at any other company (except one wh
6.
by horatiumocian 14y ago
I think that LinkedIn is trading at less than 20x revenue (revenue in 2011 was more than $500M, and market cap is around $10B)
7.
by horatiumocian 14y ago
A16Z invested in PicPlz, which was a competitor to Instagram, after the initial investment in Instagram (which was then called Burbn and was doing something else). So, after Burbn pivoted to Instagram, A16Z had to choose between 2 competing
8.
by horatiumocian 15y ago
Probably the best example is Amazon. They were unprofitable for the first 6 years or so, using VC money (and money from the IPO) to increase their market share as quickly as possible. Groupon might be another example soon, if they don't get
9.
by horatiumocian 15y ago
What about Avangate (www.avangate.com)? I don't know too much about them, so I am not sure if they are what you're looking for.
10.
by horatiumocian 15y ago
It couldn't have been 2003. There was no Facebook then.
11.
by horatiumocian 15y ago
Well, they might be right, if they are referring only to the money that are invested in the company itself (i.e. by issuing new shares, not by buying out existing shareholders). Out of the $800M Twitter investment, only half of it was an ac
12.
by horatiumocian 15y ago
I think that MySpace was valued at $12 billion at some point; where there where rumours that Yahoo! would merge with MySpace, and News Corp would receive 25% of Yahoo's shares (they were valued at around $50Bn). Here is the article: http:/
13.
by horatiumocian 15y ago
Is it possible for Microsoft to buy only the smartphone unit from Nokia, and let Nokia manufacture and sell feature phones? That would make more sense for Microsoft, but I am not sure it is possible for a lot of reasons (legal, patents, com
14.
by horatiumocian 15y ago
Maybe he's in touch with a Nokia insider that has knowledge of their intentions, and this is way he is so good at predicting Nokia-related news, but not other news.
15.
by horatiumocian 15y ago
1) Skype has stronger growth than when it was owned by eBay 2) When it was spun off by eBay, Skype acquired the IP of their P2P technology from the founders. This makes it more attractive to suitors 3) Skype has filed for an IPO, which woul
16.
by horatiumocian 15y ago
I think that Microsoft buying Skype makes more sense than Google or Facebook buying Skype. First, the way for Skype to make decent revenues is to go for the enterprise market, which brings them paying customers. It would be really hard to c
17.
by horatiumocian 15y ago
The cultures of Amazon and Netflix are more similar than the cultures of a generic mature company and a start-up. Amazon is still taking risks and starting new businesses - AWS is one example. Most recently, they started venturing into vide
18.
by horatiumocian 15y ago
I think the most important thing is that they have healthy revenue growth (more than 100%). If they have $90M in revenue per quarter, they can do much better than $2M in net income, if they focus on that, but they are still focusing on grow
19.
Why should Amazon buy Netflix(marketwatch.com)
5 points by horatiumocian 15y ago|6 comments
20.
by horatiumocian 15y ago
This article seems to overlook the fact that even if Amazon, Ebay, Microsoft had a very small valuation at the time of their IPO, the founders, early employees, and probably some VCs held on to the stock for a long time after the IPO; thus
21.
by horatiumocian 15y ago
Indeed, the fact that Skype was spun off by Ebay, and is preparing for an IPO with close to $1Bn in revenue, contradicts a significant part of this conspiracy theory. Although, it still could be true.
22.
by horatiumocian 15y ago
Here it is: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-03/facebook-is-said-to... To be more precise, it's $2B in EBITDA, not net profit.
23.
by horatiumocian 15y ago
I don't see many reasons for Facebook to buy Skype: 1) Technology: Skype's core technology is their P2P technology. They have their own clients for PCs and mobiles. Facebook resides in the cloud, and it works from the browser. This is a hug
24.
by horatiumocian 15y ago
Facebook may make $2B in profits this year. So I think they could come up with this cash. Also, they can give some of this amount in stock.
25.
by horatiumocian 15y ago
I am not sure that Marc Andreessen has so much influence at Facebook. He has one of the 3 board seats that are controlled by Zuckerberg. And Skype would be Facebook's biggest acquisition so far, so it wouldn't be easy for him to convince Zu
26.
by horatiumocian 15y ago
I suggest it would be a good idea to try to clear the ownership issue as soon as possible. Am ambiguous agreement will come around and bite you when you have some degree of success. Everybody in the team will feel like they had a major cont
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by horatiumocian 16y ago
I remember reading at the beginning of the year that Google wants to change the way they are organized, in order to stop their employees who were frustrated with their bureaucracy from defecting to Facebook and other start-ups. A possible f
28.
by horatiumocian 16y ago
I wonder if there will be any more acquisitions in the social media monitoring. I think the best candidate is Visible Technologies.
29.
by horatiumocian 16y ago
Ev is involved less and less (from the TechCrunch article). Maybe he is preparing for his next venture.
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by horatiumocian 16y ago
I think Jack will concentrate on the product, the monetization part will be left to Dick Costolo.

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