Facebook Acquires FriendFeed • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook Acquires FriendFeed

#51

Post by davidw » Mon, Aug 10, 2009, 8:46 PM UTC

gojomo wrote: post #48

redorb wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

way high, think more like <10mm , plus great signing bonuses for the employees (200k+ ea) ..

This subthread is 'guesstimates'. Redorb gave his honest guesstimate. Time will tell if it's right, but in the meantime it's rude to vote this comment down to -4 fade-out (where I saw it) just because you disagree.

The key point being that he wasn't rude or insulting or otherwise antisocial; he was just a bit wrong. That doesn't deserve massive downvoting.

Re: Facebook Acquires FriendFeed

#52

Post by teamonkey » Mon, Aug 10, 2009, 8:47 PM UTC

"Facebook has acquired FriendFeed, we’ve learned. We’re gathering details now."

And so are they.

Sorry, couldn't resist. Data harvesting is the first thing I think of when I hear "Facebook" these days.

Re: Facebook Acquires FriendFeed

#53

Post by run4yourlives » Mon, Aug 10, 2009, 8:53 PM UTC

turtle4 wrote: post #41

run4yourlives wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The latter. Always. Usually with extra incentive to ensure that you are productive over the period you are there.

But how does this work with the non-owning 'talent'? The owners of a company can't force/guarantee that their engineers are going to stay, right?

You can offer vesting or other stock type transactions to secure loyalty, or it can even be as simple as offering retention bonuses to key staff members. It's not overly complex, and talent would be assessed at individual performance and job function levels.

Re: Facebook Acquires FriendFeed

#54

Post by run4yourlives » Mon, Aug 10, 2009, 8:56 PM UTC

staunch wrote: post #38

run4yourlives wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, no kidding. Does it become a real acquisition when it's really a disguised signing bonus? :-)

Assuming the acquisition was for $20-$40 million+ in stock, that's way outside the signing bonus territory.

For the man who built gmail and his hand picked team of techs, $20-40 million (less the actual company value) is probably a pretty good deal, especially for a company that really needs to make some cash in the next year or two.

Re: Facebook Acquires FriendFeed

#55

Post by vijayr » Mon, Aug 10, 2009, 9:01 PM UTC

FB has always wanted Twitter, but Twitter is probably too expensive at the moment. So it makes sense for them to buy FF. Not sure what they would do with it though.

Re: Facebook Acquires FriendFeed

#56

Post by jonknee » Mon, Aug 10, 2009, 9:14 PM UTC

boundlessdreamz wrote: post #40

webwright wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Friendfeed raised $5m... I'd guess on a post-money valuation of $25m. So a $25m exit would basically mean that the investors in the most recent round get a 1 to 1 payout for their investment. Not a big win. But justifying a $50+mm offer for FriendFeed seems awful hard-- so my guess is $25-$35m. It does get the FF investors a pile of Facebook stock which is pretty hard to come by (but at what valuation for FB?). OTOH,…

My guess is that deal will be somewhere around $25-30mn cash and $40mn stock.

I doubt they used much cash. Facebook is bleeding cash and tossing around that kind of coin for a mostly talent based acquisition doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Re: Facebook Acquires FriendFeed

#57

Post by dmoho » Mon, Aug 10, 2009, 9:24 PM UTC

ivankirigin wrote: post #11

jacquesm wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

he didn't

Yes, saying it is for talent is like saying it isn't for tech.

I think he was saying that the tech, impressive as it is, pales in comparison to the talent.

Re: Facebook Acquires FriendFeed

#58

Post by hyperbovine » Mon, Aug 10, 2009, 9:25 PM UTC

redorb wrote: post #36

billydean wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$25-50 million

way high, think more like <10mm , plus great signing bonuses for the employees (200k+ ea) ..

The founder of friendfeed was employee 20-something at Google. His washing machine probably cost 200k.

Re: Facebook Acquires FriendFeed

#59

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 10, 2009, 9:25 PM UTC

dannyr wrote: post #2

My guess is it's a talent acquisition.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Acquires FriendFeed

#60

Post by michaelneale » Mon, Aug 10, 2009, 9:37 PM UTC

thaumaturgy wrote: post #32

apgwoz wrote: post #18

This doesn't make me happy. FriendFeed is an amazing product, and though I'm glad that they are getting their payday for it, I hope the service doesn't get killed off or abandoned. I'm not so much a fan of Facebook, so potentially being forced to use it so that I can continue to use the features I love from FriendFeed is more or less going to cause me to look somewhere else for those features, which unfortunately is…

Yes, and Facebook's history in dealing with its users is prompting me to remove my FriendFeed account now.

I agree - I am not at all comfortable with facebook, even though I use it, I am very very wary... They seem to be happy to do as they feel by default.