

Q&A with Greylock's David Sze: The $250MM Difference in Facebook’s Valuation - iamvictorious
http://iamvictorio.us/post/53985025665/q-a-with-david-sze-the-250mm-difference-in-facebooks

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jiminy1199
There is a lot more to an investment than just the valuation. If VCs are
shooting for outsized returns on home run investments that make up for their
failed investments, then Greylock shouldn't have made the investment at all.
"At least $1 or 2 billion big but no one had certainty it would end up being
$50-100 billion+ big" \- that sentence is laughable in its tautology. If
people had certainty about that, the valuation would be way more than $500MM
and another $250MM would have made no difference. For VC fund to invest at a
$500MM valuation in hopes of an exit at $1-2B, they have already indicated
that they are riding the coattails of earlier investors. This article makes it
sound like Greylock evaluated Facebook in an intellectual bubble and took a
big leap of faith, but that's just what they want you to believe.

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joshuaellinger
Outside of the value of actually being helpful, I can see why this would
appeal to Mark. I bet he saw Greylock as a better partner for helping him
maintain control over the subsequent rounds.

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iamvictorious
I believe it was Sean Parker who is credited with helping Mark Zuckerburg
maintain control.

He supposedly was the one who got mark 3 of the 5 board seats from the initial
round of financing: [http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/10/sean-
park...](http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/10/sean-
parker-201010)

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seferphier
Existing investors like Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman must have influenced fb's
decision. Honestly, what kind of VC firm can add value worth up to $250MM.

>(a) kids move on to the next thing The risk is small given fb users's
engagement time. "Kids" were spending hours on fb. This is an entirely
different beast than myspace and friendster.

