An open letter to Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)

http://www.aarongreenspan.com/letter/index.html

by Ultrapreneur • 19 years ago

9 8 19 years ago

nreece• 19 years ago

As the letter states: Yahoo paying FB $100 per user, and not every FB user buying anything worth $100. So the Yahoo offer is much more lucrative.

Is it a justifiable to work on this idealogy for an acquisition? Say, for xyz.com, if each user brings in $10 on average (through advertising or sales), should the acquisition value (per user value) be more than that amount?

I'm not quite aware of this, so thought I'd ask.

mwerty• 19 years ago

>Say, for xyz.com, if each user brings in $10 on average (through advertising or sales), should the acquisition value (per user value) be more than that amount?

The gospel is that the value of a company is the total value of expected future cashflows. This generally applies to publicly traded companies.

AFAIK acquirers typically pay more than the market value since the acquirer usually perceives more value for it. Eg. Yahoo and MSFT may be able to make more money with facebook than facebook can by itself. Their bidding can drive the price up.

There are also strategic reasons. Eg: Yahoo might die if MSFT acquires facebook instead. This can also drive the price up.

myoung8• 19 years ago

Aaron's a great guy, you guys should also check out the NYT article about him: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/01/technology/01facebook.html...

It's refreshing to see someone NOT jump at the chance to sue FB, and arguably his case would be most likely to succeed.

AF• 19 years ago

It is unfortunate because it seems that those that succeed (especially in the computer industry) are the biggest jerks.

The article does mention Gates, who was involved in some pretty shady stuff when it comes to establishing Windows. You learn about Steve Jobs and his early times at Apple and it is apparent he treated a lot of people like complete shit. Steve used Woz quite a bit, too.

And then there's Zuckerberg...he might end up being a billionaire but it seems that he had to step on a lot of people to do it.

What's that quote from the Bible? 'What good is it to gain the whole world but forfeit your soul?' There's a lot of smart people here at news.yc - I hope if any of you hit it big you won't let money and fame consume you.

gojomo• 19 years ago

He's full of BS with regard to Facebook, and I explained why, based on his own book account, when the NYT article was previously posted here:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49122

esbaker• 19 years ago

In case anyone's interested, Aaron and I are now working on a new startup called Qubescape. If you want us to let you know when we go live, just give us your email address at http://www.qubescape.com (and if you're looking to join a cool new startup, send us an email!)

danw• 19 years ago

What is it?

blored• 19 years ago

Everyone seems to be grabbing at the Facebook spotlight.

An open letter to Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)

Related Stories