> What you've seen to-date is conditional success > All FB needs is a SINGLE acquirer to purchase them. Just a single metric: one company to buy FB. Just like Skype with eBay, MySpace with News Corp, Bebo with AOL, etc.
When Google bought YouTube it certainly wasn't profitable in any way and it had a huge copyright cloud over its head. Chad Hurley and Steve Chen had a $1.65 billion payday. YouTube STILL isn't profitable and is being sued for $1 billion. You think either Google or the YouTube folks are complaining? You think Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis are worried if Skype is a "fad"? You really think Bebo founders are crying over $850 million? (I may think Falco was a fool to pay that much for Bebo (or Witman for Skype, for that matter), but that is NOT the point. We're talking about a company's ability to get to payday, not if the acquirer was prudent. In that metric, whether it is 1998 or 2008, scale always matters. There are entities always willing to pay for scale. AND they don't have to use conventional metrics you cited to derive value out of that scale either. You're not going to get scale if your intention is solely to be profitable (37Signals) but you're not likely to get acquired unless you have scale. So your ability to get to that big payday is directly proportional to your ability to scale. FB has scale. You do the math. -- Kontra http://counternotions.com ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
