31–40 of 107 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe they were running out of money and needed to do more work to bring revenues appropriately up. Yahoo allows them to not need to focus on revenues, as they already have a large and established an ad sales team.
In contrast, another VC round surely would have forced them to focus on revenues, perhaps even at the expense of user experience and product quality.
Marco makes a lot of Steve Jobs comparisons in the write up, genuinely curious, did he work with Steve Jobs?
No, he did not. If you listen to his podcasts Marco's career is an open book. Basically, college -> unremarkable first job -> Tumblr employee nbr 2 -> Instapaper -> The Magazine.
The post says he won't make "yacht-and-helicopter money"... I think helicopters are cheaper than he thinks. On a billion-dollar acquisition, I can't imagine the near-cofounder having less than 1% (hopefully quite a bit more). This means at least $10M, which should be plenty for a helicopter. Maybe I'm reading his comment too literally.
Well, lots of brand new yachts can be had for mere hundreds of thousands, too. I don't think Marco has actually priced them. :)
The post says he won't make "yacht-and-helicopter money"... I think helicopters are cheaper than he thinks. On a billion-dollar acquisition, I can't imagine the near-cofounder having less than 1% (hopefully quite a bit more). This means at least $10M, which should be plenty for a helicopter. Maybe I'm reading his comment too literally.
My sense is Marco is looking at the money in terms of: "how much yearly income can my money generate, and what kind of lifestyle would that be?" (kind of like thinking about a retirement account). In that sense $10M in savings is not enough to start buying yachts and helicopters assuming he doesn't want to blow all the money at once like a stereotypical lottery winner. More importantly, he makes it clear he'll never…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In contrast, another VC round surely would have forced them to focus on revenues, perhaps even at the expense of user experience and product quality.
Not to mention, could they get a favorable VC round given their poor revenues?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
“I have two iPhones, one for day and one for the night. When the day phone runs out, the night phone takes over. I never have to worry.” It's an advanced Self-Important Internet Dude move. Best not imitated by amateurs.
Why is this comment thread on top?
David was the lead developer or?
That.
I didn't stay with Tumblr long -- the limitations eventually got to me -- but I always had the sense this was a product with a personality behind it, not a committee.
The post says he won't make "yacht-and-helicopter money"... I think helicopters are cheaper than he thinks. On a billion-dollar acquisition, I can't imagine the near-cofounder having less than 1% (hopefully quite a bit more). This means at least $10M, which should be plenty for a helicopter. Maybe I'm reading his comment too literally.
Then there are the likely VC liquidation preference multipliers where they'll get a larger piece of the pie.
He's been gone since 2010 so I'm guessing any options he had were exercised so it should be long term capital gains. Figure in taxes and take away any previous exercise costs and I bet it's around 1-1.5 million that he's cleared. A nice sum, but definitely not "yacht-and-helicopter money".