Mark Zukerberg the founder of Facebook just announced the earlier month that it already reached 500 million active users, Facebook went live in February 2004, Now I will show you the 11 companies which tried to buy Facebook.
1st offer :In June 2004, an unnamed investor offered $10 millions but the 20-year-old Mark Zuckerberg refused.
2nd offer: Friedster offered to buy facebook, but also refused.
3rd offer: In summer of 2004 Google came to Mark, asked him if he liked to sell the facebook to Google or even work together.
4th offer: In March 2005, Viacom offered $75 million to buy the company.
5the offer: In the spring of 2005, Chris DeWolfe the CEO of MySpace did a meeting with Mark and the facebook stuff if there is a possibly buying the facebook.
6th offer: In January 2006, MySpace’s new parent company News Corp had the same idea, Ross Levinsohn met with Mark trying to finish a deal, but Ross still worry about if the facebook will keep up its growth or not.
7th offer: Viacom came back after failure in 2005, Viacom still fall in love with facebook, Mark flew to New York to meet with CEO Tom Freston, but Mark was not interested with the offer.
8th offer:NBC met with facebook, there is no more details about the offer.
9th offer: In the begging of 2006, Viacom back for the 3rd and last time, Mark Zuckerberg told MTV boss Michael Wolf the facebook company worth $2 billion, after a couple of weeks, Viacom sent Facebook $1.5 billion offer ($800 million in cash up front, the rest a payout later). The deal was about to be done, but Facebook wanted a bigger upfront payment, but that was not appreciated in MTV cause Facebook still make a small revenues.
10th offer:In June 2006, Yahoo decided to buy the Facebook, Yahoo offer was $1 billion, the investors of Facebook wanted to sell, but Yahoo lowered its offer to $850 million, so Facebook rejected the offer.
11th offer:In the middle of 2006, AOL decided to buy the Facebook,AOL and Time Inc. plans to sell some companies to offer $1 billion to buy the facebook, but Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes was not interested in this idea.
12th offer:In the end of 2006, Yahoo came back with new trial, Yahoo offered $1 billion or more, but the Facebook was opened beyond the college and school students, and the registrations were up from 20,000 a day to 50,000 a day.
13th offer:In the end of 2007, Google decide to invest and buy facebook with the biggest offer which changes the shape of the Facebook company, Google offered $15 billion.
14th offer: In 2007, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer ask Mark Zuckerberg “Why don’t we just buy for $15 billion”, Microsoft bought a small stake in Facebook according to $15 billion valuation. Microsoft bought 1.6% of Facebook for about $250 million. Microsoft would have the option , every six months to buy another 5% of Facebook. 5 to 7 years will make it 100% owned to Microsoft.
[via businessinsider]