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Steve Ballmer Says Microsoft Tried To Buy Facebook For $24 Billion (businessinsider.com)

Posted by msmash on from the itsy-bitsy dept.

Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told CNBC on Friday that his company tried to buy Facebook when it was "itsy-bitsy" for $24 billion. BusinessInsider adds: Facebook fielded a lot of offers in its early days. When CNBC on Friday asked Ballmer how much Microsoft offered back then, he said, "Oh I think $24 billion when the company was itsy-bitsy and he said no. And I respect that." Zuckerberg clearly made the right choice. He currently has a net worth of $57 billion and Facebook's market cap is $374 billion.

9 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. I wish they had succeeded by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I wish Microsoft had succeeded, facebook might be extinct by now.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    1. Re:I wish they had succeeded by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why would you wish Facebook extinct? A platform that is happily used by over 1billion people? You're free to just not use it you know. Block it's domain at your router and go about your life.

      I for one am glad that the internet isn't simply subject to the wishes of one Oswald McWeany.

      Putting aside the part that my comment was mostly in jest; being serious, Facebook is ever advancing. It's annoying when sites require a Facebook account to join theirs, Facebook has become an alternate official ID in this country. Facebook tracks me, even though I don't have an account. I can control that I don't have my real name on the web, but I can't control if someone else posts a picture of me on facebook and associates my name with it. I feel like Facebook represents a huge privacy violation, not just for the users but even people who are associated with users. Facebook has proven to be rather unethical in their deployment of security and privacy options, often leaving people wide open by default when things change. Not to mention, facebook annoys me every night I go to bed and my wife spends the next three hours facebooking people.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  2. Weird... by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If someone offered me 24 billion for anything, even my hypothetical super-successful company that I built with my own blood, sweat, tears and sacrifice of a firstborn son, I would take it in a heartbeat. Same puzzlement over the Snapchat guys declining what I think was an overly generous offer for that company. Then again, I've never built such a company so I have no idea of what it means to give up control of it. Still... With 24 billion in your pocket you can pretty much do what you want, start your own new company, hell, start a space agency even...

    --
    If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    1. Re:Weird... by DarkOx · · Score: 2

      Well yes and no. With 24 billion in your pocket you are just another rich guy. Running an influential tech company you are a celebrity.

      Like you say with that kind of cash you can certainly try some other ideas out. The thing is you can try those ideas out if your the CEO and major stock holder of a huge company too. The only difference is rather than starting a new company you start a new department. If the idea is successful you can spin off the department into its own company, that you also run. If its a flop you move onto something else, and if any good technology etc came out of it ownership by the existing entity is clear and it can be use elsewhere.

      Provided Mark diversified a little by selling some facebook stock and buying some other assets, should something unthinkable happen; he has more influence, and more opportunity to try out crazy schemes like rural internet service via miniature dirigibles, than he does with money alone.

      There is no reason to 'take the money and run' in this case.

      --
      Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
  3. Right choice, sure... by narcc · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Zuckerberg clearly made the right choice. He currently has a net worth of $57 billion

    With only 24 Billion, he'd be living hand-to-mouth...

    We value the wrong things.

    --
    Required reading for internet skeptics
  4. would have been awesome by jmccue · · Score: 2

    It would have created such an internet backhole sucking all the marketing crap it would probably have made it easy for us to avoid the crap we seen now on-line

  5. Re:It'd ne worth next to nothing now by cayenne8 · · Score: 2
    Ok..so Z would have been $24 Billion richer then, vs $57 Billion now.

    I don't get it...sure, that's about double the money, but at BILLIONS of dollars, what does that matter really?

    I mean, geez...I'd have taken the $24B and live the rest of my life on easy street.....

    I'm pretty sure I could somehow manage to stretch out $24B over the rest of my years on earth....[rolls eyes]

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  6. Re:It'd ne worth next to nothing now by rogoshen1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    probably because it was less about the money, and more about control over his company/baby/project

  7. They couldn't ever succeed. by ctrl-alt-canc · · Score: 2

    Elop never worked for Facebook.