And it wasn't even Craig!
David Manaster declares "Craig was robbed!":
According to this article in SmartMoney, eBay's 25% stake in Craig's List cost them only $15 million. (The size of eBay's ownership stake has been well publicized, but I have not seen the price tag until now.)Call me crazy, but this seems ridiculously cheap for a company that is a bonafide cultural phenomenon and threatens the business model (or at least the pricing structure) of every peddler of classified advertising in the United States.
I've seen a price tag as high as $30 mm for the 25% stake, but that's not the real crime here. Even though buying a piece of Craiglist for ~$100mm valuation seems absurdly low.
But what's even worse is that it wasn't even Craig that got the dough!:
I made craigslist into a real company in '99, and made it a corporation (on paper, not attitude) to get the legal protections that you get that way. That's the way it works in the US.Looking into the future, I figured that maybe someday I'd go middle-aged crazy and/or megalomaniacal, and already, "I can resist anything but temptation" (Oscar Wilde) So, with the idea of establishing checks and balances, mostly on myself, I entrusted some equity in craigslist to a guy who was working with me at the time. (I won't name him, out of respect for his privacy)
I figured it didn't matter, since everyone agreed that the equity had only symbolic value, not dollar value.
Well, the guy later left the company, and decided to sell his equity, which i learned he had every legal right to do.
Let's just call this An Abject Lesson in the Need for Good Lawyers at the Start of Your Venture.
