Ask HN: How did Twitter value Periscope at $100M before launching?

This isn't the first time Twitter has bought a pre-launch company for this much, and the answer is probably the same way that Twitter managed to value Vine at $30 million before its launch: http://allthingsd.com/20121009/twitter-buys-vine-a-video-cli...

For any pre-launch company, this would mean looking at the product, the team involved (as in acquihires), and the fit with the parent company.

No one else would value Periscope at $100M other than Twitter, it's just was the perfect fit for Twitter. The same for Facebook valuing Whatsapp at $20B after agreeing to not sell ads on it, it was a perfect fit for them for shadow profiles...

It's the same for individuals, some rich guy would pay millions of dollars for a piece of art while it's just a piece of crap for another rich guy.

would it be in their shareholders interest to pay much more than the market value of their company?

if nobody else would be willing to pay half as much, isn't someone to blame for overpaying? are there any consequences for this?

Well, you have to admit it kind of makes sense. Twitter has become too much about persons turning themselves into brands. It's a logical, if a bit cynical continuation.

After all, Periscope allows anyone to have a live broadcast show - and perhaps, just perhaps, to become the pointless celebrities of their own lives.

I know people who are actively doing, or trying to follow someone else's periscope shows, and it took me a couple of months to realise just why the entire idea rubs me the wrong way.

Value is only in the eye of the beholder.

There is no such thing as "inherent value" like taste, its all relative.

For example, $5 for a 1 litre bottle of water sounds expensive right? But if you're in the desert without any other water supply in range, its a bargain.

Twitter valued it because it convinced it's self it needed it. Its as simple as that, its the same logic that convinced HP to spunk out however much it was for autonomy, or News international for myspace.

Maybe they thought it was a good product, maybe they they knew the founders, maybe they talked a good game about facebook acquiring them. Either way it was valued that high not because it was a stunning product, but because twitter thought it needed that company and was prepared to spend 100million on it+.

+Yes that could be construed as cyclical login.