Think $1billion for Instagram was high? Facebook's Zuckerberg haggled down from $2 billion!
Jaws hit the floor when Facebook announced that it had purchased retro-photography app Instagram for a whopping $1 billion fee. But even that ludicrously high price was only half of the $2 billion that Instagram had initially asked for.
It seems that Mark Zuckerberg handled the haggling duties himself according to a Wall Street Journal report, playing host to the Instagram team at his Palo Alto home. The report also claims that Zuckerberg brought down Instagram’s astronomical demands by half over the course of just one Sunday.
Perhaps even more interesting though is how independent Zuckerberg was throughout the whole buy-out process. From the sounds of things, Facebook’s board were hardly consulted at all, right up until the acquisition was about to go through. The board was said to have been “told, not consoluted” about the plans.
Zuckerberg still has the mindset of a smaller start-up leader it appears, staying risky, agile and ultimately decisive even when tons of cash are being bandied about. Whether it all turns dividends remains to be seen, but with Facebook as wealthy as it already is, even $1 billion is practically pocket money to the world’s largest social network.
The Wall Street Journal article is a great read. Check it out in full here.
