

Facebook Launches fbFund with Accel and Founders Fund to Invest in New Facebook Apps ($10 million) - nickb
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/09/17/facebook-launches-fbfund-with-accel-and-founders-fund-to-invest-in-new-facebook-apps/

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aston
This is incredible news. Facebook is paying people to be a part of their
platform. I thought it was supposed to work the other way around?

edit: At the moment, Facebook seems to be valuable in the same way that Tommy
Lee is a celebrity. It's not clear to me how Tommy Lee gained his popularity,
and he's not really that interesting in the first place, but he remains
popular by continuing to be Tommy Lee. Facebook's using its valuation to raise
its valuation even when no actual new value is being created. If the platform
were as awesome as everyone believes, Facebook wouldn't need to put their own
money/reputation into funding people for it. But maybe I'm missing something.

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Dalgar
who is Tommy Lee? oh... Pamela Anderson's ex-husband...

I can think of a couple reasons he is well-known.

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donna
I'm curious how this will work. Will they fund small apps and not expect them
to create different types of revenue streams, just advertising? What does YC
think?

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nickb
They don't care. For $10m they've just secured their $5B+ valuation. This move
is all about PR and getting more apps integrated into their walled garden, to
increase their valuation.

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donna
thanks for the insight. ;-D

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nickb
You're welcome. :)

PS: Hope I'm not being too cynical but I really do believe that this is about
protecting their IPO. If you look into who's funding this, you'll see that
it's the same people who funded FB. What they just did is better and cheaper
than buying an insurance on a $5B property.

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breck
They don't plan on an IPO anytime soon. I think this was just a smart move as
a response to all the other VC's launching similar things.

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rms
Good for them. This solidifies that they'll buy outstanding Facebook
applications instead of recreating them internally.

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cellis
for a second there, I thought they were actually launching a bank. Like
paypal, but on facebook. Now THAT would be huge.

~~~
rms
God, I'd love to start a bank or a currency. That's where all the real money
is.

~~~
nickb
"Give me control of a nations money and I care not who makes the laws" ~ Meyer
Amschel Rothschild

~~~
rms
If I can ever take over Equatorial Guinea, the first thing I will do is create
a currency backed by Equatorial Guinea's massive offshore oil reserves.

~~~
ereldon
Here's to replacing fiat currencies with oil-backed currencies (directly)

