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- pbaehr, on 10/12/2007, -2/+47Man, I would sell out faster than a bullet train painted with cheetah blood. Zero to ridiculously wealthy in 8 seconds.
- ghoul11, on 10/12/2007, -3/+32$900 million? Seriously, who would pass that up?
- HelplessSEAL, on 10/12/2007, -3/+24I think that it's o.k. for them to buy out facebook. Zuckerberg SEEMS like an honest guy trying to create a good social community for us (unlike myspace...), though I am worried about the innovation being snubbed by such a big corporation
- wildleaf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19Okay, somehow it sounds like FuzzyBunny is pretending he's a shareholder in Facebook and that this is a magical world where people are more important than the income model they represent. You aren't and we aren't.
It isn't about what Yahoo can provide for Facebook, it is about what Facebook can provide for Yahoo. That is why they are buying them. I think Zuckerberg has found the deal he has been waiting for. A way to make a nice chunk of change and still keeping control over it. The Facebook model has proven to work, and people seem happier with it than myspace, which commanded 2/3 the price from NewsCorp.
I can probably see yahoo treating this as a distant cousin. They can keep Facebook seperate, with the exception of integrating their users into the system. They already have Yahoo! Groups, e-mail, and a ton of other things that are just modular examples of what Facebook is. Think of Flikr (such as the article mentioned)
It'd be interesting to see either way! - noodlez, on 10/12/2007, -3/+21someone thinking they can get more.
and someone who doesn't want to lose control of their brainchild. - piesforyou, on 10/12/2007, -0/+17I'd have my brainchild gang raped for 900 million
- ghoul11, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15$900 million is nothing anymore? Are you Donald Trump?
- etandrib, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16I'd take the 900 Million. They are only making 50 million a year. Even if they double their profits each year (unlikely) it will still take 5 years for Yahoo to break even. I'd take the 900 million, be a 22 year old CEO and then in 4 years leave and do it again with something else.
Once Facebook opens to the public they'll be worth more which is why Yahoo is going after them now. - mcnasby, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15Terrible use of the brand name "Wii". *shakes his head in shame*
- valona, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14To be honest, Yahoo hasn't made a bad job of its recent acquisitions. Flickr remained largely unchanged, and is still a great site. Ditto with del.icio.us. I'd rather see them buy it, than MS or News International. Bebo.com is another social networking site that is ripe for taking over, all 'yoof' in the UK, Ireland, Australia seems to use it. I signed up for a look and it is an utter joy to use compared to MySpace. Buying Facebook would allow Yahoo to tie it in with their video and mapping services amongst others. €900 million does sound expensive though, where is the actual revenue stream?
- chubbymidget, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12SOLD!!!
I'd be living a Corona commercial so quick.. - ldhertert, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11So when this kind of money is exchanged during an acquisition, where exactly does the money go? Is the $900m mostly directed back into the company for it to grow? Does it go into the pockets of the creators? Whenever this happens I picture one person walking away filthy rich, but I have no idea whether that's actually the case.
- Feanor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12As long as they don't let anyone in like another myspace I'll be happy.
- MattL920, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10It's kind of pointless to speculate on what will and won't come out of this. Take a look at another great startup bought by yahoo, Flickr. It may not have quite the same userbase as facebook, but even after being bought by yahoo it remained a great site, and wasn't adversely affected by the change in ownership. Let's just hope the same happens for facebook.
- mhockey14221, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Apparently, accoridng to the WSJ, Zuckerberg wouldnt wake for a 8am appointment with MSFT for 1bil
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7900 million and they won't even get all the control?
Good move on Yahoo's part. I think they're purposely trying to counter Fox's move to buy myspace. They want it to keep its charm without looking like the corporate bad guy. - dchesterton, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Just like Flickr and Delicious?
- zevgreen, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Sell my brainchild? Damn, i'd sell my brain for $900 million. Don't be a jackass, take the money and stay in control for as long as possible. Then when they tell you to leave, laugh all the way to your next well funded project.
- krinthekuz, on 09/16/2008, -1/+7agreed. i'm with the black hearted souls who would sell it out faster than you can say "cha-ching!"
do you know how much money 900m dollars is? unfortunately for zuck, it probably isnt 900m cash. it's probably like 1m in cash with 899m in stocks. with 25m cash invested properly, you get 1m a year after taxes and inflation for doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. - yllabianbitpipe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6From what I understand if Facebook took a lot of VC money all those VC companies get paid back first, depending on the % share in the company. It depends on how much of their own company they gave away to the investors to get that seed money. Hopefully the founders still have a big stake in the company too so they'll get paid a big portion of the $900 million. Oh, and don't forget taxes.
- nitsuj, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Naughty, sneaky spammer.
- jhub908, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7hahaha what a baller.
Hell, I'd throw my girlfriend into the offer for 900 million!
/if i had one - john2kx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5it's not like Facebook isn't making any money right now.. Zuckerberg makes millions a year through ads and investors alone... He doesn't need to sell out his entire company before it becomes something truly big.
It'll happen once people realize that MySpace is complete garbage compared to Facebook, and word spreads.
It's too early Mark.... don't do it!! - TheDrunkMonkey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5"Sure, but it's not easy to make even the best-funded project as popular as Facebook has become.."
I am calling it now- front page digg story titled "Next big project from the creator of Facebook".
With the popularity of Facebook, all you would have to do is associate the new project as being "from the creator of facebook" and lots of people would be interested in it. - jb347, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Take the money and ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun.
- okcomputer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4yahoo, i have some florida swamp land for sale
- FuzzyBunny, on 10/12/2007, -8/+12For me the questions is what does Yahoo have to offer Facebook? How will all of Yahoo's assets improve or hinder the user experience of the average Facebook user?
- danep, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7Call me biased / ignorant, but think about the copious amounts of personal information available on Facebook. Even though many would say "hey, you put it there, you shouldn't expect it to remain private", I trust it a hell of a lot more in the hands of an individual than in the hands of an uber-national company, who's sole purpose is to collect, categorize, and make such information as accessible to the public as possible.
- nicmakaveli, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Around March, Yahoo was weighing a roughly $1 billion offer ... . At one point in the Yahoo negotiations, the talks extended into the weekend, says a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Zuckerberg, this account continues, said he couldn't take part because his girlfriend was in town.
- mofochief, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3i think yahoo is pretty underrated. they wouldn't kill facebook... they'd probably exploit the heck out of it, tho. =P with the facebook opening up to the public, who knows where that's gonna head...
- rfunches, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Viacom offered $750m in January and Zuckerberg said the site was worth $2b.
- xenubaba, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3A few reasons why he is hesistant to accept the offer:
1) It's not 100% cash. A significant proportion is in Yahoo shares. Sure you could hedge it with derivatives but that'll take off a few decimal points off your return.
2) Tax. Tax. Tax. Capital gains tax is high. - phreel0aderr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3and a bridge too.
- dezmd, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5mhockey: I would too. Whats another $100 million on top of $900 mil and why sell your soul to MSFT? there comes a point at which this whole idea is unbelievably ridiculoisus and sites like facebook have no real effect or USE for people actually taking part in 'real life' day to day grind that isnt already duplicated 10,000 times over.
cheers. - piesforyou, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Wildlead: i'm sure FuzzyBunny meant he wanted to know what yahoo will offer facebook in order to make up his own mind about whether it is good or bad for the users.
He said "For _me_ the question is..."
So really you can't criticize his comment because he was merely expressing the question which is most important to him, and I am sure it is the most important question for a lot of facebook users. - pinsomniac, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It's not all about money. When you run a corporation that's receiving offers to be bought out for roughly $1B, you start to focus less on the cash and more on the parties interested. There are people out there who are interested in actually seeing their business remain true to its mission and be successful on their terms; I get the sense that Zuckerberg is one of them.
The offer comes at a strange time as Facebook is looking to open up registrations in the very near future. That said, I don't believe anyone can match the sort of experience and track record for acquisitions that Yahoo holds. Excellent pairing if the deal goes through. - tastethevenom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Mark Zuckerberg is a member of the Google generation, one too young to remember all the ambitions dashed and fortunes lost when the last dot-com boom ended. That may be one reason Zuckerberg, the 22-year-old founder..."
Uhhh, too young to remember? Yeah, because all current 22-year-olds were blind, deaf and dumb at that age. Good job, Saul. - dezmd, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5for $900 million you can have everything except my son. and maybe my wife. but she'd probably tell me to take the money anyway. ;)
@Fuzzy:
The are offering $900 million. Do you have any concept of money? With $900 million you can run a company forEVER with even halfassed reinvestment. - amalik49, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Zuckerberg still owns 30% of the company and I'm sure other employees own a bunch. They took a decent amount of money from VCs but that didn't buy much of the company since it was already so valuable. My guess is employees walk home with at least 60% of the cash and VCs the rest. Once YHOO buys it, it's their responsibility to invest in it. They're paying to buy the equity, not for reinvestment.
- omaryak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2If Yahoo does with Facebook what they did with Flickr, this can be a good thing. I wouldn't mind Yahoo testing some ways to integrate Yahoo services with Facebook – instant messaging being one of them. But they have to be able to convince users that the fundamental nature of Facebook – clean, simple layout; strong privacy settings – will remain unchanged.
- Caviarmy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I've also wondered how these kinds of funds get distributed in a corporate buyout... anyone savvy on it?
- cellis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I-P-O, I-P-O, I-P...
thats what I'd do, except for Sarbanes - amalik49, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yahoo isn't going to pay $900 million and keep it closed off. And even before all this hullabaloo, Facebook was planning to open up to the "unwashed masses" anyway.
To Zuckerberg and his team's credit, they've played this perfectly. Watch Friendster fall on its face, let MySpace be the first to sell...and then let the hype build. They were probably right to turn down the offers they got in the past, but they are NEVER going to be more appealing to an acquiror than they are now. Yahoo is desperate and needs to make a big move after their stock ***** the bed this week. When the economy slows, advertising is the first thing to go (see: YHOO's own revenue warning earlier this week).
I'm going to dump all my YHOO shares if they go through with this. - fallenone05, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Sold!
- PSUstoekl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Coincidentally, facebook seems to be down right now.
- pseudoastronaut, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I think keeping control of your ideas and work up to this point is much more important to Zuckerberg than taking a larger sum at buy out and be summited to watching what you had created be mis-managed.
- anagoge, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Sell doesn't neccessarily mean you hand the company over. I mean, I'm sure if he did sell, Yahoo would still like (and probably require) him to work on it in either in the same role or something similar.
- Darkness123, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Wow $900 Million, but will Yahoo pay in Cash ? lol
Seriously I think he should sell and just live the good life. - Li0nel1234, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I am a College student and a frequent user of Facebook and I think that FB should not sell out to Yahoo. Although Yahoo claims to keep it independant it's hard to believe they won't do something crazy to try and turn a profit out of it. There's no way they're going to pay 900 million with the intentions of making only 50 million a year off of it. There has to be a catch. Yahoo is desperate to widen the gap between them and google and I doubt they'll keep facebook simple.
- spullara, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Long-term capital gains taxes are only 15% these days. Much better than ordinary income taxes.
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