Mark Zuckerberg

Zuck vs Systrom: the acquisition that starts as 'let's partner' but means 'sell or die'

Shaan reads the leaked Zuckerberg-Systrom messages as a coded negotiation: acquisitions open with 'we should partner / integrate Open Graph more deeply,' but the real subtext is Zuck signaling Facebook's own photo app could crush Instagram unless it sells.

“So first of all, any acquisition, it always starts with like, we should just work together more closely. Like, yeah, we should discuss like a partnership. And both sides kind of know what that means. He's like, you don't really want the partnership, but you can't just say, I want you to buy me or I want to buy you. And so it often starts with that.”

Systrom turned down Zuck's $500M after 18 months on Instagram

Sam marvels that Kevin Systrom, only about a year and a half into Instagram with relatively modest funding, had the nerve to say no to Zuckerberg's $500 million offer (later anchoring to a $2 billion 'yes' number).

“And after a year and a half, Zuck offered him $500 million and he had the nerve to say no. So that's pretty amazing.”

The Forbes list says brand acquisition beats real estate and funds

Tai argues that studying the Forbes list reveals where wealth concentrates: the first real-estate name is #102, fund managers cluster at the bottom, and brand acquisition or founding is the most correlated activity. He cites Zuckerberg's Instagram and WhatsApp buys.

“nobody makes money on the top of the Forbes list from real estate. Number one, the first American that shows up on the Forbes list from real estate is number 102. Number 102. In fact, the most correlated activity with building wealth is brand acquisition or brand founding. But brand acquisition is massive if you look at the Zuckerberg's really been an acquirer, and without Instagram, he would— and WhatsApp, Facebook would be worth a third at best.”

Steal thisStudy the Forbes list for what actually correlates with wealth instead of trusting your intuition about real estate or funds.

The myth of the omniscient founder: Zuck nearly sold to Yahoo

Shaan punctures the folklore that great founders always knew, noting Chris Sacca and Peter Thiel tell tidy visionary stories. In reality, Zuckerberg actually agreed to sell Facebook to Yahoo for ~$1B and only walked when Yahoo tried to renegotiate down to ~$650-750M.

“Zuckerberg actually went back and actually agreed to a deal to sell to Yahoo for, I think, $1 billion or $900 million. And it was going to happen. And then like a week later or so, Yahoo came back and tried to renegotiate the deal down to $650 or $750 or something like that. And Zuckerberg was like, all right, fuck this.”

Live in the future and build what's missing for everyone else

Shaan paraphrases Paul Graham's essay on getting startup ideas: the easiest way to invent the future is to already live in it (as Zuckerberg did by sharing his life online before others) and then build whatever is still missing for everyone else.

“So Paul Graham, again, YC. Has this essay and he's talking about like how to get great startup ideas. And if you're listening to this, you want to get great startup ideas, I would go— I recommend you go read this.”

Steal thisAudit the manual hacks and tools that already make your own lifestyle better than everyone else's, then productize and educate the market on them.

Zuckerberg said he'd have built Facebook in Boston, not the Bay Area

Chicola opened a second office in Austin after a board member noted SF isn't the only place to hire engineers. He cites Zuckerberg saying he'd have done Facebook in Boston, and a Chaos Monkeys anecdote that only one of Facebook's first 30 employees besides Zuckerberg remained — evidence that Bay Area housing costs push talent to job-hop.

“I know I saw some interview once where Mark Zuckerberg said if you could go back in time, he would have done Facebook in Boston. I don't know if he meant it, but he said it, which is a big thing to say, um, for a guy like that. And I was reading one book, I think it was Chaos Monkeys, I talked about Facebook, and the guy said that when he got to Facebook, he met somebody who was employee number 29 of Facebook, and that he or she was the only person of, of the first 30 other than Zuckerberg that was still there”

Steal thisOpen a second engineering office in a lower-cost city to retain talent past the vesting cliff.