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Google Tried To Buy Color For $200 Million. Color Said No.

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Re: Google Tried To Buy Color For $200 Million. Color Said No.

#21

Post by ww520 »

ziadbc wrote: post #17
zoul wrote: post #12

I feel like I live in a different universe. Can please someone explain to me what rational thinking might be behind such offers?

These deals often faul through at the last minute. Much of the time, the company making the offer just wants to get a look 'under the hood' of a potential competitor. Think of all the companies google has made these offers to and the deal didn't happen. Strategy at this level is kind of like macroeconomics, it just doesn't map to what makes sense on face value.

The small guy is sort of at a disadvantage if the big company just tries to jerk around. Is there break-up fee as part of the letter of intent?

Re: Google Tried To Buy Color For $200 Million. Color Said No.

#23

Post by jonknee »

ww520 wrote: post #21
ziadbc wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These deals often faul through at the last minute. Much of the time, the company making the offer just wants to get a look 'under the hood' of a potential competitor. Think of all the companies google has made these offers to and the deal didn't happen. Strategy at this level is kind of like macroeconomics, it just doesn't map to what makes sense on face value.

The small guy is sort of at a disadvantage if the big company just tries to jerk around. Is there break-up fee as part of the letter of intent?

Depends on the letter.

Re: Google Tried To Buy Color For $200 Million. Color Said No.

#25

Post by MatthewPhillips »

vailripper wrote: post #10
null_para wrote: post #2

Something must be there in their product that everyone is willing to pay top dollar. And these are all smart people who are ready to pay btw, not any average joe investor

If the product was released differently, it very likely could have been successful. It seems to me that once they got all that VC funding, they were desperate to release something to prove their worth. But, since their product depends on tons of people all using it in a geographically tight area, it crashed and burned. I think had they started releasing at events (ala twitter @ sxsw), they could have had some success…

3G connections don't work well at large events.

Re: Google Tried To Buy Color For $200 Million. Color Said No.

#26

Post by jdp23 »

zoul wrote: post #12

I feel like I live in a different universe. Can please someone explain to me what rational thinking might be behind such offers?

First of all take it with a grain of salt. That said, there are at least a couple of ways to look at it:

1) There are reports that Google offered some of its product managers tens of millions of dollars to keep them from joining Twitter. If that's how they're valuing talent, then $200M is in the ballpark for Color's "superstar team" combined with some very interesting IP,

2) Smart investors described Color's technology as breakthrough and potentially "the next Google". Even accounting for some hyperbole, suppose that it really is groundbreaking for reasons that us mere mortals can't fully grok. In that case, adding it to Google's arsenal and combining it with all their other assets (and proven engineering and operations strength) could be a multi-billion-dollar win and a big addition to Google+. Or not, as the case may be; but making a risk/reward tradeoff, it could have looked attractive.

Re: Google Tried To Buy Color For $200 Million. Color Said No.

#27

Post by mestudent »

acrum wrote: post #15

(Sorry-- Off-topic) HN Powers That Be: How did this get submitted twice? The URL is the same as far as I can tell... except a trailing slash? (see: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2790700 )

And that trailing slash is exactly how it didn't get caught by the dupe filter.

Re: Google Tried To Buy Color For $200 Million. Color Said No.

#29

Post by rudiger »

rdl wrote: post #24

Remember Microsoft offering to buy Yahoo for $45 billion back in 2008? It is worth about $18 billion now (less, actually, especially if alipay goes badly)

Well, an acquisition would have to be for a premium of Yahoo's publicly-traded market capitalization, so it's tough to say how much they "lost" by scuttling the deal.
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