The Wall Street Journal is reporting (behind their damn paywall) that “people familiar with the matter” are saying that the company has had separate acquisition discussions with Yahoo, Microsoft and Viacom over the last year, and that they are again in serious discussions with Yahoo for around $1 billion.
We’ve been through all of this before with Facebook, back in March. There isn’t much in the WSJ article to suggest that the talks are serious other than the unnamed source they cite. I’ve put in emails to Yahoo corporate developement and Facebook PR for comment. I will either receive emails back saying they never comment on acquisition discussions, or they won’t respond.
There are other interesting tidbits in the article, however, which includes a “dot-drawing” of Mark Zuckerberg and a couple of priceless quotes:
During one series of talks with Microsoft, Facebook executives told their Microsoft peers they couldn’t do an 8 a.m. conference call because the company’s 22-year-old founder and chief executive, Harvard dropout Mark Zuckerberg, wouldn’t be awake, says a person familiar with the talks. Microsoft executives were incredulous.
and
At one point in the Yahoo negotiations, the talks extended into the weekend, says a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Zuckerberg, this account continues, said he couldn’t take part because his girlfriend was in town. Others pointed out they were closing in on a billion-dollar deal. Mr. Zuckerberg said it didn’t matter: his cellphone would be off, this person says.
Our previous coverage of Facebook is here. Thanks Richard for the heads up.
Update: Facebook Marketing Director Melanie Deitch responded to my email: “No Comment” 
Web 2.0 VC’s are looking smarter and smarter everyday.
I really enjoy Mark Zuckerberg’s management style. How many of us waited for M$ and Yahoo many times in their life? Karma always comes back.
I think that’s what we call whipped
It’s “cite”, not site.
If this kid keeps passing there isnt going to be to many big companies with deep pockets willing to buy them. Personally I would have taken the first offer and if this second offer is legit I would be signing away over any weekend or holiday. He can then buy his girlfriend… well whatever she wants. History shows that social networking sites are often fads. Before long he will be dumping the company for 20 mil and spending hundreds of thousands in therapy
Damn Zuckerberg is my new hero.
I bet all these billion-dollar executives forward emails saying “enjoy your life”, “live the present”, “family first, work later”… And a 22 year old teaches how to do it.
I hope Zuckerberg got something really good from his GF, he would have been able to use a killer line. “Hey baby, I blew off a billion-dollar deal with Microsoft to be with you today. How about it?”
I’m sorry but if I told my girlfriend, I can’t spend time with her tonight, because I’m about to sign a deal for ONE BILLION DOLLARS. She would understand. If any of this is true, he doesn’t deserve the offer.
Mark really annoys me. What an arrogant ass he must be to pull stuff like this, especially back in March when he turned down a 750 million dollar deal, because he wanted 2 billion. I mean, sweet Jesus.
Wait, I have to hit my crack bowl before I finish this post…ahhh…that’s better.
One billion? Based on *any* financial metric this is just insane. It’s irresponsible not to take it if it is, in fact, legit.
Speaking of irresponsible…it’s very dangerous to act with such hubris. Zuckerberg has a responsibility to his shareholders which includes having m&a discussions at inconvenient times if it will benefit the stakeholders. Maybe he should start shooting stupid videos of himself like the American Apparel flake.
We couldn’t even send a message to our group members at FB! It’s almost like a joke or something…nice to write off goodwill I guess.
Mesattack
http://www.markseremet.com
Mark is in a place to negotiate. Sure, we might think it ridiculous to turn down or blow off a $1 billion dollar deal, but honestly what does he care? He owns the company. He is 22 years old and calls the shots! He makes more than enough money on a daily basis to live life without worries.
The offers will still be on the table on Monday morning, and who knows it may have increased by then..
Yeah, I mean… he turned down 750 million, and now he’s in talks for 1 billion? That’ll learn him.
In all this talk of him being an arrogant ass, we also forget how irresponsible busy-ness types are to simply *assume* they can infringe on your week-end. Why not wait until Monday? Don’t they also have friends, family, spouses or children to come home to?
Few people regret on their death bed not having pulled more overtime on week-ends instead of time at the cottage with the kids. At least the 22 year old has the excuse of being a young’un… what’s the excuse of the microserfs?
Meh. I can’t help but to lose interest in anything that resembles the 22 year old CEOs of the last time we were all sitting around, excited about the booming business in technology. Who can forget them (and in a way, who wants them back?).
Maybe he was doing it on purpose, like J Lo did with Sony’s executive, who kept messing around with scheduling and finally, J Lo said she wasn’t available. It worked for her, maybe it’ll work for him. hehe.
I’m not sure which is more insane: Blowing off a billion dollar deal so that you can “sleep”, or a company offering one billion dollars for such a site.
Oh well, I will say both are equally insane.
i’m surprised that Mark still carries that much clout around the office. I would have thought with all the VC money pouring in over the last year or so, his equity and voting rights would be eroded away. I thought he was no different that our boy “Tom” over at the competition by now.
^ LOL.
This posts begs the obvious next question — if Yahoo buys Facebook (likely in a move to get Facebook users to utilize more of Yahoo, and to get Yahoo ads in front of these kids)…. what happens to Microsoft (whom just signed a deal with to display ads on Facebook.com through 2009)… or rather, will Yahoo own Facebook.com, but have to live with Microsoft ads all over the website through 2009?
Is it real? O man, I hope my AssBook would sell at 1 billion too.
BO I think that’s what we call whipped
Are you applying this term to Yahoo and Microsoft?
Sounds to me like Zuckerberg is just a wee overconfident. It would almost be funny to see him dump this company well below current value because he was acting like an infantile git.
Then again, for some, money isn’t as important as it is to others.
He better move before the market crashes
dont make the mistakes hundreads of companies made in the 90’s, take your money and RUNNNNNNNNNN.
This is merely the deployment of history repeating itself.
For those who don’t know the tragic story of Gary Kildall, it is here for your reading pleasure (and hopefully Zuckerberg’s):
http://www.businessweek.com/ma....._mz063.htm
Given that Yahoo did just come out yesterday with news that dropped their overall market cap by $4-$5 billion, why not throw a cool $1 bil at Facebook? From the recent reports, their revenue “was weaker then expected for a 2-4 week period…..” in the automotive and finance side of things.
Hell, if you lose $4 bil in market cap because you have a slow month in ad sales, you might as well put that money into something that can give your traffic a boost. More importantly, this would likely be great PR and push that market cap right back up to $40bil.
I am confused, the article says that facebook’s revenue is going to top 100 million, don’t companies usually get valued at 10 x their earnings? If so, that would seem to completely justify a 1 billion dollar acquisition.
It’d be interesting to do an ROI analysis from a lead gen point of view but $1B buys a LOT of college eyeballs, college attention and college trust. What do I know, I run a doughnut shop
Yeah i find it hard to get out of bed for less that $2bn in the mornings as well!
@nicole - revenues are not the same thing as earnings.
if you listen closely you can hear the air’s hiss in the distance….psssssssss….
I think it was a very smart move. On both accounts. MS is known for playing hardball in negotiations. Zuckerberg was gaining control of it. It’s a classic tactic: when someone sets a deadline, the first thing you do is break it.
Don’t forget, MS tried to buy Hotmail for $10 million, before they finally came back and bought it well over $100 million… They acted all outraged at that first meeting, too.
I generally think speculative articles about takeovers are worth nothing. But reading about a fledging mogul with a $1b product brush off meetings because of scheduling conflicts with sleep and then his girlfriend is priceless.
Regardless of their revenue, can they sustain this for many years to come (10-15 years)? If the answer is no, then I don’t see why someone would put down $1B on a company with REVENUE of $100M (not profit) - even if the profit WAS $100M, you’re still talking 10 years to make a return. Perhaps Yahoo! wants to extend their userbased, but I am fairly confident that users of Facebook already use their favorite search engine and won’t be persuaded otherwise.
Instead of wasting money on a fad, maybe they should be investing elsewhere or looking for companies that are sustainable.
Mark Zuckerberg is my new hero. He seems the only person in the whole damn world with his priorities straight: Family, life, *then* work. It takes someone with balls to show that to these corporate execubots that, and I respect that.
I don’t care if he does wind up with hundreds of millions dollars; I’d like to buy this guy a drink one day.
this is not about balls, he can make the deal, and never have to worry about anything again for his entire life.
To 29. J. Tenassian
Microsoft bought hotmail from Sabeer Bhatia for $400 million in 1997.
I think people are losing a little bit of perspective on a lot of hype. Let’s be honest, do you really think Zuckerberg is the only one calling the shots here? You don’t think he has about 10 people sitting around him going - we can get more, we should hold out? Props to him for starting the business, but to think he’s the only one running it at this point is more ridiculous than believing he blew off a meeting to hang out with his girlfriend.
Even if the deal closes in the millions rather than over $1 billion, I think Zuckerberg will still be okay. It seems as though business types often act as though everyone else’s lives can be put on hold simply so a deal can be finished. How many times have you had to wait until Mon-Fri 9-5 business hours in order to get your important stuff taken care of? I don’t often see people coming in on the weekends and opening up the office because I’m in a hurry. Kudos for him for taking his time and recognizing that he’s got the advantage.
35
I agree, i bet you any money the VC is making the calls.
Sold all my shares of Yahoo this morning. I’ve always thought Yahoo is a great company. Preferred them over Google simply because they have the revenue diversification that Facebook lacks. Have stuck with them despite the recent performance. But after the advertising slowdown announcement the mere thought that they would go out and spend this kind of money on something that is way overvalued is the final straw for me. I’m out!
To be honest, I think Facebook is worth more then $1 billion. I further agree with #35 and #37 in that it isn’t just Zuckerberg calling the shots. Let’s face it, any 22 year old in his prime with the right screws in his head would’ve taken the deal…hell, he probably would’ve taken the $750 million deal.
However, I do not agree with his arrogant ways. It will come back to bite him in the butt later on, and he’ll be sorry about it. I can understand if he explains that it is the majority shareholders and chairmen convincing him NOT to sell yet, but to act egotistical as he is is irresponsible and arrogant.
List of social networking websites
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.....g_websites
Yahoo is better off creating their own version of Facebook. Facebook users are losing faith in the company and Mark will be holding 30% of ZERO pretty soon. I want to see to he has to say when his girlfriend dumps him then.
“couldn’t do an 8 a.m. conference call because the company’s 22-year-old founder and chief executive, Harvard dropout Mark Zuckerberg, wouldn’t be awake”
That is great, lets hear it for the end of the 9-5 life for smart young web execs (like myself)
It’s 11am and im just waking up and I feel GREEEEEEEEEAT
Facebook is pretty profitable at this point. The thing is, they don’t need to be bought out for him to still make a lot of money.
It kind of sends a message to those companies that he doesn’t need their money and it puts the advantage on his side. It makes them be the ones who need him and that will put him in a better position to negotiate stuff.
@Dennis
If they’re profitable why did they take $25 million recently? From what I’ve heard, they have decent revenues but are not profitable. When they open up the network to everybody they’re going to lose a lot of the college loyalty. They’ll just be another MySpace wannabe.
^ I was wondering that too.
I dont think they should open up to everybody yet. After the 2008 elections, maybe.
“…facebook executives told their Microsoft peers they couldn’t do an 8 a.m. conference call because the company’s 22-year-old founder and chief executive, Harvard dropout Mark Zuckerberg, wouldn’t be awake…”
“At one point in the Yahoo negotiations, the talks extended into the weekend, says a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Zuckerberg, this account continues, said he couldn’t take part because his girlfriend was in town.”
Kids will be kids.
But I still love this one.
Zuckerberg (most likely his VCs) are probably orchestrating these little PR tidbits about rejecting m&a meetings because of “sleep” or “girlfriend” as a way to add more lore to Zuckerberg’s persona not to mention increase Facebook’s negotiating power by sending the message that they aren’t in a hurry to sell. My guess is Facebook really does want to sell the company but doesn’t want it to appear this way. IMO, it’s dealmaking gamesmanship which isn’t a bad thing but they have to be careful not to go too far with it.
MYSPACE, FACEBOOK, YOUTUBE HERE TODAY GONE NEXT YEAR
WOW, I cannot believe he would not get up for a 8am conference call. If this is true, and I don’t believe Yahoo would buy Facebook for 1 Bil, then he is an idiot. That sounds like something I would do at 22, a kid without perspective. However, tell me any sane 28 or 29 year old would not take 1/100 of that money and be set for life!
48 Kaiji - gone next year… and replaced with what?
These sites are meeting human needs for a subset of the population better than anything else that’s existed before. I would say of the three Youtube is in the most precarious situation, as it’s community is the weakest.
Maybe in 3 years we’ll see some significant changes or updates from competitors that draw people away from these sites, but otherwise, do you *really* think people will go back to emailing, IMing, and calling on their cell phones, not knowing whats up with their friends?