If you’ve been thinking that Facebook ponied up too much cash in its takeover of Instagram, here’s an interesting fact: Mark Zuckerberg had to negotiate hard to get the price down from an insane $US2 billion to $US1 billion.
The New York Times reports that the price was whittled down during a series of meetings conducted at Zuck’s Paolo Alto home during the course of a single Sunday.
What’s perhaps more shocking is how little involvement Facebook’s board had in the purchase. The Times spoke with sources who suggest that the board was only informed of the plan on the third and final day of negotiations — when pretty much all that remained was to establish the final price. In the words of one source, the board “[w]as told, not consulted”.
It was a bold strategy, and one that smacks of the kind of approach a small startup might take. It’s not, however, the way most people might expect a multi-million dollar public organisation to conduct business.
The Times article is well worth reading in full, especially for the account of how the negotiations played out. [New York Times]