
HowStuffWorks Acquired by Discovery for $250M - terpua
http://mashable.com/2007/10/14/howstuffworks-discovery/
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karzeem
HowStuffWorks was probably the site I visited most through middle school and a
good bit of high school. Wikipedia has largely replaced it, at least in my
experience.

Considering they raised $120 million in VC, is a $250 million acquistion a
major success? The founders are probably rich now, but for the investors, it
doesn't seem much better than breaking even (especially since the site is ten
years old). What did they need $120 million for, anyway?

~~~
dhouston
the founders actually might not be rich -- VCs tend to structure deals that
only make founders rich on a big (probably more than the 2x here) exit.

(for example, liquidation preferences and other terms can make the returns
much uglier for founders/employees/other common stockholders -
[http://www.feld.com/blog/archives/2005/01/term_sheet_liqu.ht...](http://www.feld.com/blog/archives/2005/01/term_sheet_liqu.html)
)

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pg
That is astonishing. It's basically a large book.

~~~
ivankirigin
There are a good number of videos and what seems like a fairly active
community.

[edit: but that number _is_ high]

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wschroter
It's one of my favorite sites by far. A bit of an aged brand but definitely a
nice site.

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mpc
how much would wikipedia be worth then?

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mynameishere
Wikipedia is on google's front page for almost every noun in the English
language, and #1 for many.

Examples:

"top": 3 and 4

"ten": 11

"noun": 2

"English": 1 and 2

"Language": 1

"number": 1 and 2

"one": 3 and 4

"many": 3

What's it worth? Billions and billions and billions.

~~~
cstejerean
The problem is that if it is ever sold the community will likely migrate away
(unless the company buying manages to keep the same open and democratic
feeling to it). I'm also curious what the potential for advertising on
Wikipedia is. I think throwing up adds on Wikipedia would reduce it's
encyclopedic nature to people. Not to mention that Wikipedia has received
ridiculously large donations from large companies and that would no longer be
true if it got bought out, so the actual costs of running it would probably be
really high.

