

An open letter to Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) - Ultrapreneur
http://www.aarongreenspan.com/letter/index.html

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nreece
As the letter states: Yahoo paying FB $100 per user, and not every FB user
buying anything worth $100. So the Yahoo offer is much more lucrative.

Is it a justifiable to work on this idealogy for an acquisition? Say, for
xyz.com, if each user brings in $10 on average (through advertising or sales),
should the acquisition value (per user value) be more than that amount?

I'm not quite aware of this, so thought I'd ask.

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mwerty
>Say, for xyz.com, if each user brings in $10 on average (through advertising
or sales), should the acquisition value (per user value) be more than that
amount?

The gospel is that the value of a company is the total value of expected
future cashflows. This generally applies to publicly traded companies.

AFAIK acquirers typically pay more than the market value since the acquirer
usually perceives more value for it. Eg. Yahoo and MSFT may be able to make
more money with facebook than facebook can by itself. Their bidding can drive
the price up.

There are also strategic reasons. Eg: Yahoo might die if MSFT acquires
facebook instead. This can also drive the price up.

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myoung8
Aaron's a great guy, you guys should also check out the NYT article about him:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/01/technology/01facebook.html...](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/01/technology/01facebook.html?ex=1189915200&en=c3fd741764e074db&ei=5070)

It's refreshing to see someone NOT jump at the chance to sue FB, and arguably
his case would be most likely to succeed.

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AF
It is unfortunate because it seems that those that succeed (especially in the
computer industry) are the biggest jerks.

The article does mention Gates, who was involved in some pretty shady stuff
when it comes to establishing Windows. You learn about Steve Jobs and his
early times at Apple and it is apparent he treated a lot of people like
complete shit. Steve used Woz quite a bit, too.

And then there's Zuckerberg...he might end up being a billionaire but it seems
that he had to step on a lot of people to do it.

What's that quote from the Bible? 'What good is it to gain the whole world but
forfeit your soul?' There's a lot of smart people here at news.yc - I hope if
any of you hit it big you won't let money and fame consume you.

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esbaker
In case anyone's interested, Aaron and I are now working on a new startup
called Qubescape. If you want us to let you know when we go live, just give us
your email address at <http://www.qubescape.com> (and if you're looking to
join a cool new startup, send us an email!)

~~~
danw
What is it?

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blored
Everyone seems to be grabbing at the Facebook spotlight.

