When it all began, Facebook wasn't a stranger to acquisition interests from bigger companies. In an interview recently, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer revealed Microsoft was one of these companies.
During the interview with CNBC , Ballmer disclosed that Microsoft had offered $24 billion for Facebook in 2007 when it was “little”
At this point the company was still a fair amount of time away from its initial public offering, which saw its increase in value even more, but Microsoft was actually late to make the offer.
In reference to David Kirkpatrick's The Facebook Effect, Facebook started receiving offers from technology giants such as Google, Viacom, and Yahoo as far back as 2004 and lots of them made offers with more than one retry.
A real precedent was set by Google when it made an offer to invest in Facebook at the value of $15 billion. Facebook simply rejected the offer, after which Ballmer dropped in for Microsoft and asked “why don’t we just buy you for $15 billion?”
It's not entirely unlikely that Ballmer's offer was more of a reaction to Google's assured interest rather than grow out of a genuine belief that Microsoft and Facebook were the right fit for one another at that time.
That said, the discussions must have been a little serious if Ballmer had offered $24 billion as he says. As we all know, though, Zuckerberg declined. Ballmer said in his interview that, "I respected the decision."
In certainty, it's easy to respect a decision that was so clearly the perfect one for Zuckerberg. Facebook, having become one of the biggest technology giants on the planet, it isn’t exactly "little" anymore with a market cap of $374 billion and Zuckerberg’s own net worth sitting at an estimated $57 billion.
During the interview with CNBC , Ballmer disclosed that Microsoft had offered $24 billion for Facebook in 2007 when it was “little”
At this point the company was still a fair amount of time away from its initial public offering, which saw its increase in value even more, but Microsoft was actually late to make the offer.
In reference to David Kirkpatrick's The Facebook Effect, Facebook started receiving offers from technology giants such as Google, Viacom, and Yahoo as far back as 2004 and lots of them made offers with more than one retry.
A real precedent was set by Google when it made an offer to invest in Facebook at the value of $15 billion. Facebook simply rejected the offer, after which Ballmer dropped in for Microsoft and asked “why don’t we just buy you for $15 billion?”
It's not entirely unlikely that Ballmer's offer was more of a reaction to Google's assured interest rather than grow out of a genuine belief that Microsoft and Facebook were the right fit for one another at that time.
That said, the discussions must have been a little serious if Ballmer had offered $24 billion as he says. As we all know, though, Zuckerberg declined. Ballmer said in his interview that, "I respected the decision."
In certainty, it's easy to respect a decision that was so clearly the perfect one for Zuckerberg. Facebook, having become one of the biggest technology giants on the planet, it isn’t exactly "little" anymore with a market cap of $374 billion and Zuckerberg’s own net worth sitting at an estimated $57 billion.