Shut up and build something

As everyone on earth knows, Google went and bought YouTube for a stupid huge sum of money.  Now people are ragging on Yahoo for not putting in a stronger offer.  Yahoo currently has about $4 Billion in cash  which seems like a lot of money to me.  However, Google bought YouTube for 1.65 billion.  Almost half of what Yahoo! has in the bank. 

Yahoo should not have made a stronger offer.

Yahoo should take $1.65 Billion and divide it up into 825 separate $2 Million chunks.  Then take that and make 825 separate bets on what will become the next big thing.

YouTube wasn't around even a few years ago.  If it were a baby it would barely be talking.

There are a lot of excellent ideas floating around out there.  YouTube's technology is nothing special.  MySpace's technology is horrific.  Facebook's technology is only slightly better than MySpace.

Wise up!  It's not hard to build these systems, it's luck to make them work.  And if anyone, Yahoo! should understand what it's like to be nothing, then at the absolute top of the pile, and then working your way back down the ladder.

YouTube is an application that may have some staying power, but it's not because it is in any way a surprising service.

I say rather than satisfying the egos of those that are built to flip - Yahoo should sit back, strategize, spread their money around, and see what germinates.


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Comments

[Dan Ciruli]

That post was full of testosterone.

And amazing.