
Div Turakhia has sold his seventh business, Media.net, for $900M - pvsukale3
https://backchannel.com/two-decades-ago-he-borrowed-500-from-his-dad-ef20be70f8f9#.3cruvxn7l
======
shurane
This sounds like a plug piece about this person's life. Great, he sold a
company for a large sum of money, he's stood on the top of a moving plane,
he's played some video games. This article very flagrantly displays his
wealth, and goes into so little detail on the business. And the staged photos
alongside this are equally ridiculous.

unfortunately, this is more a "rich kids of Silicon Valley" than anything
else.

~~~
repomies691
Maybe he is looking for a girlfriend and this is a paid dating ad.

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pvsukale3
There are 2 kinds of startups. Those that are constantly in the news with
their founders giving quotes, talking about funding rounds, and sharing their
success mantras. Then there are others that work quietly in the background,
without any hype or hoopla, but then burst onto the scene with news that
leaves the ecosystem stunned. Media.net belongs very firmly to the latter
category.

\- See more at: [https://officechai.com/stories/media-net-
acquired/#sthash.OR...](https://officechai.com/stories/media-net-
acquired/#sthash.ORGVjwUH.dpuf)

~~~
readhn
I agree and I respect more the "strong silent" type. Although this guy is not
in that category. Seems pretty flashy to me.

~~~
sonink
He is flashy for sure, but Div is probably the only guy in the ads business,
who runs a company this size and can still talk 'code' as good as the best
engineers you know. They have a huge engineering setup in India and are one of
the best paymasters. Though they do fly under the radar even in India.

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samdung
Wonder why instead of appreciating the success, most comments here are
disapproving of it.

I did not hear of these guys till news of this acquisition broke out. I can't
help but admire them. These guys have earned their Ferraris and Houses much
like the Google Guys have earned their Private Jets.

Maybe we can't appreciate someone who became a billionaire without outside
funding and on their own terms. I smell jealousy. This has lots to tell about
us than these guys.

And somehow the moderators of this forum took it upon themselves to banish the
article from the front page.

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funnymikey
All that money but <div> yearns to have semantic meaning.

~~~
IanDrake
I LOL'd when I read this...sometimes HN takes itself too seriously.

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abhv
Can somebody explain what the business actually does?

~~~
Donzo
They serve contextual display advertisements.

The reason that their ads are effective is because they are frequently
disguised as navigation.

I still made more money with AdSense though, and it feels a little less
dirty...

~~~
repomies691
LOL, the business model seems to fit pretty well to the douchiness of this
guy.

~~~
puranjay
How did you decide that the guy was douchy? Having money and spending it
shouldn't be the criteria for it.

By most accounts, his company is a great place to work in.

Let's not forget that before it got on its high horse (after making billions
upon billions), Google was pretty okay with letting people advertise scammy
stuff on AdWords too, as was Facebook (just ask people about the glory days of
the "Rich Jerk" or dating offers on Facebook)

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arc_of_descent
I believe they are from the DirectI group. DirectI started very early in India
when no one had any idea what the hell a domain was. They did (and still do I
think) domain registration, web hosting, etc.

Pretty simple stuff, but they started it all quite a while back and captured a
good percentage of the Indian market.

~~~
antisthenes
Be first, be the best or cheat.

