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

#1

Post by csmajorfive » Thu, Jul 21, 2011, 6:51 PM UTC

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

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

#2

Post by null_para » Thu, Jul 21, 2011, 7:03 PM UTC

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

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

#3

Post by slackerIII » Thu, Jul 21, 2011, 7:04 PM UTC

I guess that explains the valuation.

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

#4

Post by lazy_nerd » Thu, Jul 21, 2011, 7:06 PM UTC

Did Google dupe Sequoia and other VCs into thinking that Color was actually worth investing $40million dollar into even though eventually when they launched it turned out to be vaporware?

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

#5

Post by nkassis » Thu, Jul 21, 2011, 7:08 PM UTC

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

I too feel like there something there people think has value but the average person doesn't see. But maybe there is nothing and this is really as irrational as it looks.

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

#6

Post by taylorbuley » Thu, Jul 21, 2011, 7:12 PM UTC

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

I suspect there might be some pretty heavy use of computer vision as related to those images -- perhaps to pick out brand preference or otherwise personal/private information that could be rolled up/anonymized such that marketers would buy in aggregate.

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

#7

Post by param » Thu, Jul 21, 2011, 7:13 PM UTC

nkassis wrote: post #5

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

I too feel like there something there people think has value but the average person doesn't see. But maybe there is nothing and this is really as irrational as it looks.

Agreed. Either Color has value, or it doesn't.

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

#8

Post by arkitaip » Thu, Jul 21, 2011, 7:13 PM UTC

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

Investors act irrationally all the time and it doesn't help when their coffers are so overfull with other people's money that $40 million becomes chump change and not even noticeable in the ledger.

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

#9

Post by 9ec4c12949a4f3 » Thu, Jul 21, 2011, 7:13 PM UTC

With that $200M they might afford to buy a vowel, specifically a U.

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

#10

Post by vailripper » Thu, Jul 21, 2011, 7:17 PM UTC

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.