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Snapchat back hands Facebook

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Dick Whitman, Nov 14, 2013.

  1. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    Facebook offered the message-sharing app $3 billion, and its founders turned it down. That's pretty gutsy.

    http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/11/13/report-facebook-offered-snapchat-3-billion/3517929/

    That's pretty bad news for Facebook, which is struggling to attract younger users. Essentially, as I understand it, the pendulum has swung back somewhat. Young people don't want to overshare any more, particularly publicly. They want privacy, and Snapchat, which started out as basically a sexting app, supplies that.
     
  2. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    I'd like to know what percentage the founder still holds.

    I can understand turning down initial offers, but Ho-Lee-Fuk, I hope he doesn't wait too long. We're talking about billions of dollars. That's fuck you money for generations.

    And, of the various platforms, Snapchat seems like the one that could most easily be rendered irrelevant.
     
  3. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member

    Yeah, according to the NYT, the strategy is being driven by Benchmark Capital, which holds a big venture stake. Apparently, Benchmark also had a big stake in Instagram and was convinced the founders left money on the table when it sold to Facebook for $1 billion.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/14/technology/rejecting-billions-snapchat-expects-a-better-offer.html?hp&_r=0
     
  4. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    The NYT story mentions that Facebook turned down some offers early on. I wonder how much and from who.

    EDIT: Looks like Viacom made three separate offers at as much as $1.5 billion, and Yahoo! made a $1 billion offer, as well. Microsoft also tried to buy the company or at least a large chunk of it, based upon a $15 billion valuation, and ended up buying a stake for around $250 million.
     
  5. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    I thought Yahoo! offered them a shitload at one point.
     
  6. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    I think it's probably true that Instagram could have gotten more if they held out longer, so it makes sense for Benchmark to not want to jump at the first deal.

    But, if I was a 20-something kid, with this kind of offer on the table, I wouldn't be able to sleep.
     
  7. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    Yep. Good memory. I dug that up and edited the post.
     
  8. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    I've never heard of Snapchat, but that doesn't mean anything because I'm old... :D

    I don't know if it's a good move or not, not to sell, but there are a lot more stories about places that should have sold whose companies went from being worth billions to being almost obsolete in very short periods of time.
     
  9. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    Does anyone here have a snapchat account?
     
  10. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    Snapchat is what you're supposed to use for sending dick pics, right?
     
  11. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member

    Yep, it started as a hookup tool for kids. The disappearing message is the attraction.
     
  12. MisterCreosote

    MisterCreosote Well-Known Member

    I've never heard of snapchat until now. I'm also old, though.

    My favorite is News Corp. buying Myspace for $580 million, and six years later flipping it for just $35 million.
     
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