I have been critical of Mark Zuckerberg and his brain trust at Facebook, yes.
But I’ve also been doled out a lot of praise. Sit down folks, this one is a love-fest.
When Facebook turned down offers of $800M, $1B, $1.6B, $2.3B by Viacom, Yahoo! and Google, people thought Mark et al. were crazy. What was crazy, ultimately, was the $240M investment Facebook snagged at a $15B valuation in 2007.
Mind you, this was not an exit for $15B, but an investment of $240M at a $15B valuation. While the move can come back (and probably will) to haunt Facebook (who would actually pay $15B for Facebook today?) it will also reassure Facebook’s financiers that MSFT will at least consider buying Facebook for something in the future if the future is not so rosy.
Today comes the rumor that Nokia and Facebook are working on a partnership, and like many corporate development deals come as a result of business development talks, Nokia might invest in Facebook, too.
This is smart: it adds one more deep-pocketed company to join the $15B round (bear in mind MSFT’s deal stipulated that Redmond would invest at Facebook’s next funding at that valuation, so the round is open, and Germany’s Samwer brothers and Hong Kong’s Li Ka-Shing have since joined).
Why this is key is that even if Facebook does not / cannot exit in an IPO at a level that would satisfy the $15B valuation, it now has not one (MSFT) but two (MSFT and Nokia) that can pull the trigger and one day buy Facebook for a price tag that would make Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberk, Jim Breyer, David Sze save face.
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January 20th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
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