E-Paper
Mark Zuckerberg reveals whether he would have sold Facebook if offered $5T: ‘I did some analysis…’
Mark Zuckerberg has opened up about his thought process when certain deals were offered in 2006
Reports in 2006 claimed that Yahoo came up with a $900 million offer after Mark Zuckerberg got rebuffed after countering Viacom's $750 million offer for Facebook. The deal, however, did not go through. At present, Facebook (Meta Platforms Inc.) has a market cap of $1.22 trillion.
Zuckerberg has now opened up about his thought process when the deals were offered. He also revealed whether he would have sold the tech giant for $5 trillion instead of $1 billion.
‘I didn’t really have the financial sophistication’
In an interview, podcaster Dwarkesh Patel told Zuckerberg that he did not sell Facebook for $1 billion in 2006, “but presumably there’s some amount you would have sold for.” “Did you write down in your head like ‘I think the actual valuation of Facebook at the time is this and they’re not actually getting the valuation right?’ If they'd offered you $5 trillion, of course you would have sold. So how did you think about that choice?” Patel asked.
Zuckerberg said that at the time, he wasn't “sophisticated enough to do that analysis.” He also said that there were people who made arguments for and against the deals at the time. “It was very far ahead of where we were at the time. I didn’t really have the financial sophistication to really engage with that kind of debate,” he said.
The Meta CEO said that he believed in what he was doing. The analysis he did revolved around personal questions and about what he would do if they sold Facebook. He thought that even if he did sell it, he would soon build another similar tech giant. Therefore, there was no point selling it.
“I did some analysis like ‘what would I do if I wasn't doing this?’” he said. ”‘So I think if I sold this company, I’d just go build another company like this and I kind of like the one I have. So why?'”
