Facebook “definitely” not for sale

Matt Marshall | December 15th, 2006

facebooklog1.jpgFacebook, the social-networking Web site courted by Yahoo, isn’t for sale, board member Peter Thiel tells Bloomberg.

“It’s going to remain an independent company,” Thiel said in an interview last week. “The plan is to actually build it, maybe at some point take it public, but definitely not to sell it.”

Thiel said the site is actually worth $8 billion or more, citing the site’s college-aged users, according to Bloomberg. He said the company is focused finding the best way to make money from its millions of members. VentureBeat also talked last week with Thiel and and his partner Sean Parker, who helped build Facebook, and we’re not surprised to here this. Parker is convinced that Facebook’s mode of letting its users communicate, and its social graph, is the way of the future (we wrote about his views here), so they may think Facebook is undervalued by Yahoo.

However, Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, doesn’t appear as assertive as Thiel:

“We are not necessarily focused on what the exit is going to be — whether it’s selling the company or an IPO or when that’s going to be,” Zuckerberg said in an interview. “But we obviously think that there’s a lot of potential to keep growing.”

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  1. December 18th, 2006
    5:41 am

    » Yahoo prochází obrovskou restrukturalizací | Web. REFLEKTOR said:

    [...] Facebook “definitely” not for sale - Matt Marshall na VentureBeatu [...]

16 Comments

  1. December 15th, 2006
    2:57 pm

    JayDawg said:

    8 Billion lira, maybe…..

  2. December 15th, 2006
    3:51 pm

    C said:

    of course! a company with 20 months of financial history DEFINITELY has a legit claim to say they are worth $8,000,000,000 right? Right? Uh, right?

  3. December 15th, 2006
    9:43 pm

    B said:

    8 Billion for a company that has yet to generate any serious cash and could easy be deemed un-cool by its fickle user base and usurped by the next ‘cool’ college networking site?

  4. December 15th, 2006
    11:29 pm

    Bjorn said:

    you gotta admit that at least facebook has commitment to their entrepreneurial dreams and not just sell out at the earliest opportunity. yea, some could call that stupidity, a billion bucks and 20% of that would be really comfortable for a good life but these guys are living out their vision so lets give them credit for that..

  5. December 16th, 2006
    6:57 am

    Stephen Larson said:

    Sounds like good cop/bad cop to get yahoo to pay up. I predict it does sell.

  6. December 17th, 2006
    8:33 am

    Michelle- said:

    Facebook should really sell and not turn down its offers. Its target market is very fickled. All it takes is the next ‘cool’ social community with a twist…and offer goes bye-bye

  7. December 18th, 2006
    12:41 am

    rg said:

    friendster lost opportunity to sell when people approached them…if facebook does same they might become future friendster (i believe facebook is smarter than friendster, they will sell by first quarter of 2007)

  8. December 19th, 2006
    2:29 am

    michaelmbrooks said:

    It is a nice article.

  9. December 20th, 2006
    4:58 am

    michaelmbrooks said:

    It is a nice article….?

  10. February 23rd, 2007
    12:59 am

    michaelmbrooks said:

    Please explain???

  11. February 23rd, 2007
    1:03 am

    michaelmbrooks said:

    Please explain—?

  12. February 23rd, 2007
    1:04 am

    michaelmbrooks said:

    can u say more about this ?

  13. February 23rd, 2007
    1:13 am

    michaelmbrooks said:

    great?

  14. February 23rd, 2007
    1:14 am

    michaelmbrooks said:

    how great?

  15. February 23rd, 2007
    8:26 pm

    michaelmbrooks said:

    WTF LOL

  16. February 23rd, 2007
    8:28 pm

    michaelmbrooks said:

    Chuck Norris > All

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