Facebook's Price Tag For Oculus Actually $3 Billion, Zuckerberg Reveals in Court (cnbc.com)

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Facebook's Price Tag For Oculus Actually $3 Billion, Zuckerberg Reveals in Court (cnbc.com)

Posted by msmash on Tuesday January 17, 2017 @05:20AM from the real-price dept.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed in court testimony Tuesday that the company actually paid $3 billion to buy Oculus. From a report on CNBC: His testimony came in a Dallas courtroom, when game maker ZeniMax alleges that Oculus, bought by Facebook in 2014, stole the company's intellectual property. ZeniMax's attorney pressed Zuckerberg on the total Facebook paid for the company. Zuckerberg revealed that beyond the $2 billion price tag, that was widely reported, Facebook paid an additional $700 million to retain employees and another $300 million earnout for hitting key milestones. Nearly three years after Oculus' acquisition Zuckerberg defended against allegations that Oculus stole ZeniMax's intellectual property, also explaining his interest in VR and how it fits into his vision for Oculus.

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3 billion? Stock holders got fucked by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-17 05:24 · Score: 0

Class action lawsuit time.
1. Re:3 billion? Stock holders got fucked by Carewolf · 2017-01-18 03:42 · Score: 1
  
  They could have chosen to invest in a company that wasn't run by an idiot. I am sure he didn't mean to screw himself over, so proving malice is hard.
Vision for VR by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-17 05:34 · Score: -1

Does anyone have a vision for VR that DOESN'T require me to strap some dorky goggles to my face?
1. Re: Vision for VR by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-17 05:37 · Score: 0
  
  No, you fucking luddite
2. Re:Vision for VR by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-17 05:55 · Score: 0
  
  There's Google cardboard thing that *only* requires you to strap your dorky phone to your face.
3. Re:Vision for VR by known_coward_69 · 2017-01-17 06:00 · Score: 2
  
  figure 10 years down the road you can buy VR tickets to concerts, the superbowl and any other event with limited ticket supply. why pay $1000 to see some old and fat ass band from your childhood cause the scalpers bought all the tickets. buy it on VR and watch it at home from the same angle as front row seats
  people i've talked to already prefer watching sports at home compared to watching it live, especially football. this is where VR will be good at
4. Re:Vision for VR by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-17 06:13 · Score: 0
  
  Oh... "face". I strapped them to my ASS and was upset when they threw me out the store!
5. Re:Vision for VR by Bryan+Ischo · 2017-01-17 06:21 · Score: -1
  
  Not at the moment, although luddites like you will come along eventually "dorky goggles" or not so no one is paying you or your asinine concerns any attention.
6. Re:Vision for VR by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-17 06:22 · Score: 0
  
  Of all the things to pick at, you're going to complain that the goggles are dorky?
  * If you're using a high end VR solution (oculus, vive, playstation vr, gear), you're at home, and you'll rarely ever see the goggles cause you'l have them on or they'll be put away.
  * If you're using a smartphone solution (cardboard, daydream), then:
  a) you're probably at home, but if not...
  b) you're probably just watching vr videos, which it is really great at doing, but if not...
  c) you've got far bigger complaints you can make (underpowered, image drift, poor/no orientation support, controllers suck, etc)
  Personally, I want what I consider to be two ends of the vr spectrum:
  1. a simple 3d vr video player. I've tried loads of android apps, and none are perfect, but they all seem to do OK with various shortcomings, but it's all in the app that's the issue.
  2. augmented reality stuff. I want a sort of assistant to do some facial recognition and label people. Mapping/gps integration would be nice too (and there are already a bunch of things out there that can do this, mostly for cycling or motorcycling).
  Fully immersive games/activities/etc where you can move through an environment and interact with it might be neat, but I don't think it adds a whole lot, and it requires a significant setup to make the most of it. It's also the area that most of the companies are focused on, and I suspect that's because the hardware has a high profit margin right now, and AR stuff hit a HUGE wall when many in society reacted poorly to google glass.
7. Re:Vision for VR by ledow · 2017-01-17 06:23 · Score: 1
  
  You want full-vision, HD-or-above, miniature displays that are self-powered, wireless, and involve no glasses or anything else on you? And probably are selectively transparent?
  Welcome to "bio-implants", using tech only available 50 years from now. When you can convince granny to do that to check her email, give us a shout.
8. Re:Vision for VR by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-17 06:32 · Score: 0
  
  Concerts, shows, amusement park rides, strip clubs.
9. Re:Vision for VR by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-17 06:33 · Score: 0
  
  lol I'd never pay for that
  captcha: sanest
10. Re:Vision for VR by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-17 06:52 · Score: 0
  
  Inviting loss leader for market shift that happens anyways.
11. Re:Vision for VR by The-Ixian · 2017-01-17 07:13 · Score: 1
  
  By that time, I am sure camera technology will be such that the VR audience will get views that not even the front row seat holders get. I am thinking body mounted cameras, lots of 360 camera placements and drones.
  If done right, you won't even miss the energy of the crowd because you will be as good as there with them.... which then begs the question: Will anyone still want to physically go to these events?
  
  --
  My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
12. Re:Vision for VR by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-17 07:26 · Score: 0
  
  You should invest heavily in VR. It will most definitely pay off. I mean, all your friends are cool, and they think it's cool too!
13. Re:Vision for VR by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-17 07:28 · Score: 0
  
  Sure... When you decide to get off your lazy ass and invent it.
14. Re:Vision for VR by fisted · 2017-01-17 07:31 · Score: 2
  
  If done right, you won't even miss the energy of the crowd because you will be as good as there with them....
  
  Sure, if you're fine with a crowd that consists of NPCs.
  
  Will anyone still want to physically go to these events?
  Yes. It might be difficult to understand, but some people might go to these events mostly because of other people going to these events.
  
  --
  CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
15. Re: Vision for VR by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-17 07:41 · Score: 0
  
  What,because your the font of all knowledge.
  VR is the latest con job to part over moneyed fools from their stolen money.
  It will ALWAYS be a tiny part of the media market,vr will quickly go the way of 3d television,for industry vr/ar has a possible long term economic argument,for the home market,none.
  How many "smart" watches have you bought ?
  Decent vr technology is still years away,people are stupidly buying rubbish systems that barely work,not one of them works well,none are really mass market ready,but there are enough fools with stolen money willing to invest in frauds and enough other fools to buy crud systems that others can profit from to make it worth while spinning out that the tech is market ready when in fact it's another ten years away from being any good..
16. Re:Vision for VR by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-17 09:17 · Score: 0
  
  >>53683555
  quote>
  Oh... "face". I strapped them to my ASS and was upset when they threw me out the store!
  Nice trips. Praise Kek!
17. Re:Vision for VR by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-17 09:29 · Score: 0
  
  > why pay $1000 to see some old and fat ass band from your childhood
  Two of the most expensive shows I've ever gone to were festivals that cost under $300. At one of these festivals, I managed to have a brief conversation with my favorite all time singer. At the other, I ended up played poker with my favorite guitarist. And that's just the frosting on top of the cake of the overall musical experience. People-watching, helping the guy who lost his shoe in the crowd, etc. I'll take all that over a hyper-slickly produced VR thing where I can - what, view the stage from a handful of angles?
  VR will always be more V than R.
18. Re:Vision for VR by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-17 10:22 · Score: 0
  
  Already there. It's called going outside.
19. Re:Vision for VR by lhowaf · 2017-01-17 15:32 · Score: 1
  
  I heard about a VR game called, "I'm a fudgesicle" that doesn't require goggles.
20. Re:Vision for VR by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-17 19:30 · Score: 0
  
  I don't think anything can replace getting drunk and singing and dancing with strangers at a concert of a band you both love
21. Re: Vision for VR by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-17 20:46 · Score: 0
  
  Why does it have to be NPCs? Use that noggin to stretch your thinking a little, it's too myoptic. See Hololens showing off such tech already, predict how it'll improve in 10 years. Where are all the nerds these days!?
22. Re: Vision for VR by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-17 20:48 · Score: 0
  
  Omg and man will never fly. Seriously seems like a bunch of visionless luddites are all that is left on /.
23. Re: Vision for VR by fisted · 2017-01-17 21:22 · Score: 1
  
  If you're suggesting people meeting up in VR (using their avatars or whatever), then still no. Yes, interesting, but no, not the real thing. There's something to human-human interaction that you simply cannot reproduce with VR that's less advanced as what they have in the Matrix.
  Think of a party. (I know, we're on slashdot, so just pretend you have ever been to one). Sure I could (if the technology was there) simply stay at home, meet up with my VR buddies on a VR dancefloor, tune the VR to try and reproduce the effects of whatever drugs seem appropriate and Have A Good Night. Will it be able to produce the same hot, sweaty atmosphere, will it properly recreate the feeling (not to mention the sound) of a row of 18" subwoofers? Will I be able to hit on that cute girl over there?
  Talk about myopic(sic).
  
  --
  CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
24. Re: Vision for VR by Bryan+Ischo · 2017-01-19 08:11 · Score: 1
  
  You have no clue. But don't feel bad just because you can't afford expensive toys, you probably wouldn't enjoy them anyway. Right?
What about by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-17 05:37 · Score: -1

the Negr0es???
Doesn't that concern the SEC? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-17 05:41 · Score: 0

They lied to investors.
1. Re:Doesn't that concern the SEC? by crypticedge · 2017-01-17 08:09 · Score: 1
  
  Technically they didn't. The extra billion was not cap-ex, but payroll and bonuses. That could have been disclosed to investors very easily without disclosing they were for oculus.
  It would have been on the expenses report, but not last I checked, payroll detail reports don't tell you what projects people are working on, just staffing and costs associated to them.
$10 million per employee? by ERJ · 2017-01-17 05:41 · Score: 2

According to this http://www.recode.net/2016/3/24/11587234/two-years-later-facebooks-oculus-acquisition-has-changed-virtual Oculus had 75 employees when it was acquired. So, that $700 million to retain employees works out to a little under $10 million per employee for retention?!?!

I am really in the wrong industry...
1. Re:$10 million per employee? by mykepredko · 2017-01-17 05:49 · Score: 1
  
  Why do you think that any of the 75 employees got anything close to $10M a piece? I'd be surprised if even 1% of that amount made it to the employees.
  That line item looks like accounting games to make the company look more valuable to Facebook shareholders.
  
  --
  Mimetics Inc. Twitter
2. Re:$10 million per employee? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-17 05:52 · Score: 0
  
  Silly boy, did you forget how this works? It's $100,000 for the workers and $699,900,000 for management.
3. Re:$10 million per employee? by JustNiz · 2017-01-17 06:04 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah they probably did something like buy a whole bunch of real estate and build a new office building, then claimed they needed to do that for Oculus employee retention reasons.
4. Re:$10 million per employee? by geekmux · 2017-01-17 06:19 · Score: 2
  
  Why do you think that any of the 75 employees got anything close to $10M a piece? I'd be surprised if even 1% of that amount made it to the employees.
  That line item looks like accounting games to make the company look more valuable to Facebook shareholders.
  When accounting "games" amount to 1/3 of the total cost, it tends to question the intelligence and business savvy of the morons buying a bullshit valuation.
  Attempts to deny gross stupidity may shine a light on business practices of questionable legality as well.
5. Re:$10 million per employee? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-17 09:31 · Score: 0
  
  That's probably $698M for one guy, $2M spread out over the remaining 74.
Zuckerberg's Testimony by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-17 05:58 · Score: 0

Quack, quack, quack!
Are we supposed to care? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-17 06:01 · Score: 0

Well, we don't.
I wonder if he'd like a do-over by JustNiz · 2017-01-17 06:15 · Score: 2

Unless this was done just as a massive tax-writeoff, then I bet Zuckerberg is kicking himself for it now. There's no way Oculus is worth 3 billion now.
A string of over-greedy and shortsighted decisions by Oculus management (presumably the new people put in place by Zuckerberg after the purchase) totally devalued the product and company. Mostly thanks to marketing strategies such as drivers including always-on spying, making it a closed/DRM'd windows-only platform and store, and also totally underestimating the value of roomscale, In like 6 months Rift went from being the next big thing to a relatively dead duck compared to Steam/HTC Vive.
1. Re:I wonder if he'd like a do-over by __aaclcg7560 · 2017-01-17 08:06 · Score: 1
  
  I was working at Accolade when it got bought up by Infogrames and later renamed itself Atari after acquiring the IP from Hasbro Interactive. Infogrames was on a buying spree in the run up to the dot com bust. Afterward, with too much debt on the books, they had to sell off the various acquisitions for pennies on the dollar. That's when management figured out they paid two to four times more than the actual value of each acquisition. Needless to say, Atari want back into bankruptcy and came out a very different company.
2. Re:I wonder if he'd like a do-over by JustNiz · 2017-01-17 08:31 · Score: 2
  
  I used to love Atari stuff. Their 8 bit computers were WAY ahead of their time.. I remember my mind being blown when I saw Space Raiders at some expo back in the day. I struggled to get the money to buy an Atari 400 and my first significant programming experiences were all from it. I've lost track of exactly what Atari has become and who really owns it. Sadly wikipedia just seems to show its all been split up into tiny parts, all owned by a bunch of different shell companies, with no employees or real assets other than the trademark.
  After my Atari 400 I got an Amiga which again was a truly pioneering machine and which I absolutely loved, but sadly Commodore seem to have gone exactly the same way as Atari. I would give my left nut to change history so Microsoft was the company that failed instead of Atari and Commodore.
3. Re:I wonder if he'd like a do-over by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-17 09:18 · Score: 0
  
  *Star Raiders
4. Re:I wonder if he'd like a do-over by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-17 12:11 · Score: 0
  
  Was it $3b in cash or stock? I'd gladly spend $3b to buy a toaster if I could use monopoly money to do it.
5. Re:I wonder if he'd like a do-over by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-17 14:15 · Score: 0
  
  With the touch controllers and ability to purchase extra sensors you can do room scale now just as well as the Vive. But... Oculus have still dropped the ball and I'm not sure if FB will get much back for their $3b investment. Don't get me wrong, I"ve got an oculus and love using it, but when it comes time to upgrade or replace my VR gear, I'll probably take a look at some of their competitors products.
  Oculus refuse to provide replacement parts, they continued to attempt to create a closed wall garden so that it's impossible or harder than it should be to play VR titles purchased outside of Oculus Home, they still don't seem to have much in the way of a product roadmap (higher resolution? bigger FOV? cross-platform support? support for after market parts like face plates, lenses, headphones, straps?), there's a general lack of high quality titles that are more than just technology showcases/gimmicks, and there's no easy way to adjust the distance of the lense from my eyes to account for eyesight or comfort issues. It doesn't exactly have anyone I know screaming "take my money!"
$3,000,000,000 by Jason1729 · 2017-01-17 08:57 · Score: 1

No wonder Ole' Zuckey is so so desperate to milk every bit of personal information he can from Oculus.
That explains it by Hognoxious · 2017-01-17 09:10 · Score: 0

I wondered what the long face was about.

--
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Microsoft's $300 VR helmet... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-17 19:49 · Score: 0

...may beat Oculus Rift in the market. It may not be as advanced as some of the other VR headsets out there, but it's supposed to run on cheaper harder and it's good enough for the major use-case of the damn things: sitting at a desk and interacting with stuff.
$3b is a bargain by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-18 03:25 · Score: 0

Facebook has had four years to develop Facebook 2.0 VR experience. When the VR technology becomes widely available which is quite soon then Facebook already has a working ecosystem of social media VR services. Facebook is an advertisement company and it doesn't have to make money selling the Oculus. It sells ads on Facebook VR.