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walkitouthttps://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-27/leaving-the-enchanted-forest-is-scary
The last of the stories covered (before the link fu at the end) is about Masayoshi Son supposedly <— yeah I don’t believe it for a second — having the opportunity to invest in Amazon.com in the “early days” but he “only” had $100 million and Jeff wanted $130 million.
*blink*
OK, so this _cannot be true_ and it is pretty fucking easy to prove that it _cannot_ be true.
There was angel investing, and then there was Kleiner Perkins, and then there was the IPO.
https://www.cnet.com/news/how-john-doerr-the-old-prospector-finally-struck-google/
Kleiner Perkins put _$8 million_ into Amazon during that round. (Doerr got $60 million back at the IPO, and wow, my perspective on these numbers in 2019 is soooooo different than it was at the time.) (Motley Fool book says that was a 15% stake.) (_Entrepreneurial Genius_ by Landrum says 13% stake, and that Kleiner Perkins paid $2.35 / share in the spring of 1996. But Spring can’t be right — it was in the summer. Also, so funny — they paid more per share than I paid for mine; I paid $2.)
There was NO point where Jeff would have been going, hey, dude, your $100 million isn’t enough.
[ETAYA: It is _just possible_ that Son actually meant 100 million yen / 130 million yen, in which case, NOT a lie.]
This is a _blatant_ lie.
I’m a little disappointed that Levine just believed it. I mean, seriously. Really, fucking obviously, NOT true.
I now think that Masayoshi Son is actually The Bubble, personified.
ETA: If you click through to the Rubinstein interview, he _specifically_ says in that interview the disagreement on value was pre-IPO. So this wasn’t some post-IPO loan deal or anything. Lie lie lie lie lie.
ETA some more: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/15/jeff-bezos-amazon-ipo-frank-quattrone-sparring-john-doerr.html
Yeah, because Jeff would spend 2 hours on the phone trying to get a few million dollars more out of the IPO if he had just turned down $100 million.
ETA still more! OVP likes to tell a story about losing a handshake deal 20% of Amazon for $2 million dollars, screwed out of it by the 11th hour arrival of John Doerr. I have no idea if this one has any validity to it at all (handshake deals!), other than to note that El Jefe _really_ wanted Kleiner Perkins more than anyone else.
The last of the stories covered (before the link fu at the end) is about Masayoshi Son supposedly <— yeah I don’t believe it for a second — having the opportunity to invest in Amazon.com in the “early days” but he “only” had $100 million and Jeff wanted $130 million.
*blink*
OK, so this _cannot be true_ and it is pretty fucking easy to prove that it _cannot_ be true.
There was angel investing, and then there was Kleiner Perkins, and then there was the IPO.
https://www.cnet.com/news/how-john-doerr-the-old-prospector-finally-struck-google/
Kleiner Perkins put _$8 million_ into Amazon during that round. (Doerr got $60 million back at the IPO, and wow, my perspective on these numbers in 2019 is soooooo different than it was at the time.) (Motley Fool book says that was a 15% stake.) (_Entrepreneurial Genius_ by Landrum says 13% stake, and that Kleiner Perkins paid $2.35 / share in the spring of 1996. But Spring can’t be right — it was in the summer. Also, so funny — they paid more per share than I paid for mine; I paid $2.)
There was NO point where Jeff would have been going, hey, dude, your $100 million isn’t enough.
[ETAYA: It is _just possible_ that Son actually meant 100 million yen / 130 million yen, in which case, NOT a lie.]
This is a _blatant_ lie.
I’m a little disappointed that Levine just believed it. I mean, seriously. Really, fucking obviously, NOT true.
I now think that Masayoshi Son is actually The Bubble, personified.
ETA: If you click through to the Rubinstein interview, he _specifically_ says in that interview the disagreement on value was pre-IPO. So this wasn’t some post-IPO loan deal or anything. Lie lie lie lie lie.
ETA some more: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/15/jeff-bezos-amazon-ipo-frank-quattrone-sparring-john-doerr.html
Yeah, because Jeff would spend 2 hours on the phone trying to get a few million dollars more out of the IPO if he had just turned down $100 million.
ETA still more! OVP likes to tell a story about losing a handshake deal 20% of Amazon for $2 million dollars, screwed out of it by the 11th hour arrival of John Doerr. I have no idea if this one has any validity to it at all (handshake deals!), other than to note that El Jefe _really_ wanted Kleiner Perkins more than anyone else.