eBay Buys One Quarter Of Craigslist
from the and,-then-again... dept
We had just been mentioning the ridiculous notion that Craigslist might want to go public, and suddenly... they've sold one-quarter of the company to eBay. That was fairly unexpected, because from everything that had been said, they didn't need much in the form of additional working capital. The article discussing the deal points out that both companies are built up around loyal communities, but I'm not sure the two communities are all that similar (even when they overlap). In fact, it's not surprising that some folks on Craigslist seem unhappy with the deal (though others think it's wonderful). Craig, himself, has an interesting explanation of the deal, which suggests they didn't really need the working capital, but through a set of somewhat random events, the offer came about and made sense. Should be interesting to see what comes next.
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Wow...
Craig, himself, was on the radio yesterday morning and he said that there were no plans for an IPO, and that although they kept having VCs approach them, they aren't in need of funding or investment.
I suppose it could just be a liquidity event.
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throw around a lot of fancy financial/technical jargon, and all it really means is that Craig is middle aged, wants to sit back and enjoy his SUV lifestyle in Marin county. Craigslist will become a low-quality annex of ebay, and other sites will rise to take the place of free communal bulletin boards.
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no capital to CraigsList
my read of Craig's explanation is that a private shareholder sold his shares to eBay. CraigsList, the corporation, received no capital...
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good move on their part
Being associated with Ebay gives instant credibility. Having a big player own a 1/4 means you have protection from big players that may want your space. Kudos to Craig.
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hey wow!
dorpus said something that made sense and is probably right.
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Unfortunately, Craig didn't profit off of this sell. Whoops.
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So he claims now. How would stuff like this not eventually profit Craig? It's his company. It's like the "CEO who makes $1 a year" argument -- ignore the millions and millions he makes on stock options.
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Talked to Craig last week...
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I talked to Craig last week at a MySQL party @ LinuxWorld. I've known him for a few years and he told me he was meeting with lawyers to deal with some long-standing, unhandled business issues that we now rearing their ugly head.
Apparently, this is what he was referring to. He was pretty upset about having to deal with this, but it seems to have been resolved for the best.
Chris.
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and all it really means is that Craig is middle aged, wants to sit back and enjoy his SUV lifestyle in Marin county.
Or one could actually read about what is happening and realize exactly how astoundingly ignorant your comment is. Once again showing what a uninformed bafoon Dorpus is.
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