In 2013, Snapchat turned down an offer by Facebook worth $3 billion. Many were shocked that the company would turn down an enormous offer like that. Many speculated at the time that the reason behind this was because Snapchat thought that they were worth a lot more.
Well, Snapchat’s CEO, Evan Spiegel, has revealed why the company decided to turn down Facebook’s offer. Spiegel says that the reason he declined Facebook’s offer was because he felt that the monetary gains would be considered short-term and not worth trading for the experience that comes with being able to build a business like that.
“There are very few people in the world who get to build a business like this […] I think trading that for some short-term gain isn’t very interesting.” Forbes says that Spiegel and Snapchat’s co-founder, Bobby Murphy, stood to have gained $750 million each if they had gone ahead with the sale. All I can say is, that could not have been an easy decision. That is a lot of money.
Spiegel also says that they turned down Facebook’s offer because they had sensed weakness and opportunity when Facebook made their first offer in 2012. Facebook approached them again in 2013 and by that time Snapchat felt that they had the upper hand.
Source Ubergizmo
Filed Under: Technology News