Internet startup acquisition prices keep trending upward. A few years ago, Myspace sold to News Corp for $580 million. Then YouTube sold to Google for $1.6 billion. At that point, that $1.6 billion price tag was unheard of. That came shortly after Facebook rejected an offer from Yahoo! for $1 billion.
More recently, Groupon supposedly rejected a rumored $6 billion acquisition from Google. Then Foursquare rejected an offer for $140 million. Heroku just got acquired by Salesforce.com for $212 million in cash. It's pretty incredible that these websites have managed to create such a large perceived value in such a short amount of time. The companies that have chosen to stay on their own - mainly the more "fringe" web apps like Groupon and Foursquare - make me wonder if it will be worth it for them in the long run. It makes sense for a company like Facebook, who has managed to put themselves in the center of the internet, but for companies like Groupon or Foursquare, I'm not so sure. Sometimes I wonder if they rejected these large offers because of an inflated sense of self-worth, or because they think they'll be able to make themselves worth 10x that in a few years. Time will tell. I'm sure the hot shots like Groupon and Foursquare have great plans for their companies, but it will be interesting to watch them, and to see if their multi-million dollar - or in Groupon's case, multi-billion dollar - gambles pay off. As much as startups are the culmination of dreams that these founders have, if I was offered a large sum of money for something I built, I can't say I wouldn't cash out, go buy a mansion and a yacht, and enjoying life for a little while. So I guess kudos to these companies who believe in themselves, think they'll be able to accomplish greater things in the next few years, and to those who don't see money as the end goal in life.