So $YHOO buys Tumblr.
Wow. Mazel Tov to the investors.
Not that you are counting, but I am…that makes three $1 billion companies in 2007 and 2008 I passed on as an angel…$ZNGA, Twitter and now Tumblr. Actually I asked David after this interview if I could invest $50,000 in his angel round and he quickly said no:
I just ran into David by chance in San Francisco and we had a nice chat. I assumed he was there for the Google IO conference. I should have just asked him for a loan.
My quick thoughts because I have been asked are that this is a great deal for $YHOO and obviously a fantastic deal for Tumblr. Yahoo gets UGC (User Generated Content) up the ying yang from this acquisition and an easy to use platform that teens freaking love. It is also the one UGC Company that does not break the bank for Yahoo. Tumblr gets the inflated cash price for being the right product at the right place at the right time.
Another huge winner is Frank Quattrone. Like all great American bankers, he has been prosecuted but never convicted.
Maybe not a coincidence that Tumblr is said to have a lot of porn on their site and Quattrone has a ‘porn’ moustache…
there is no way to avoid the hangover. boards at public companies will become children as history shows and chase.
unfortunately we are in chase mode. yes we know how it ends. the cycles are sped up because of easy monty. predicting ‘when’ it will end is the impossible part. There will be tons of money to be made on the short side but no need to hate the ride up
Not hating it, I love the ride up, I made a career out of surfing that wave, I am just keeping an eye out for where the emergency exits are located in case a fire starts in the night club, and again the past 3 years we have seen quite a bit of partying in the private and public markets, it’s getting kind of late and I know that at some point the money spent buying startup/businesses for $1 billion with no cash flow runs out… and mostly I think it’s just priceless to watch Yahoo make the same kind of dumb decision out of desperation, lack of a clear strategy and focus.
got it. smart
yes. they are. they will chase so badly.
Edit – I did not forget but also did not dicslcose that through my betaworks investment, I am a small tumblr shareholder