"History is a wonderful thing, if only it was true"
-Tolstoy

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

blog.pmarca.com: Silicon Valley after a Microsoft/Yahoo merger: a contrarian view

Marc Andreessen on building value
While he started buy talking about MuSoft/Yahoo the ideas apply to many business ideas.

blog.pmarca.com: Silicon Valley after a Microsoft/Yahoo merger: a contrarian view:

"Build something of value -- something that people want, and something that will be profitable at the appropriate point -- and the world is yours.

Successful companies -- companies that have built something of value -- have many options. They can stay private and throw off dividends. They can go public. They can get acquired by big companies who suddenly decide, hey, that looks really valuable, let's buy that. They can sell minority stakes to big investors or strategic partners at very high valuations. All options that are typically not open to the startup that started with the goal of getting bought and didn't build something of independent value.

Or, reduced to a phrase: the best way to get bought is to not be for sale."

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