Selling Slack seems like a mistake. It's so ubiquitous. I'd be interested in buying stock in Slack if they IPO. Snapchat was in a similar situation, and four or so years ago when they turned down Zuck's ~$5B offer everyone was saying what a silly mistake it was not to sell. How could Snapchat possibly make money? And think of all the disheartened employees whose shares would've been worth something. Turns out there's…
> $9B is nice. But are you sure you wouldn't rather affect the world? That's a false dichotomy isn't it? You could have a large impact on the world with that sort of money.
You could be right. But there are only so many ways to convert $B into impact. The most straightforward way is to become an investor, but investing isn't so easy. And while it's true investors are one of the most important engines driving our economy, investors aren't makers. The CEO is the one with the power to get the whole company working toward a shared goal, set by the CEO. And when your company is as ubiquitous as Slack, you have the best people fighting to work for you. That's a degree of influence you might not get back, even with billions.
From another angle, consider Steve Jobs. He had the money; he could've done anything. But being CEO of Apple was worth more.