YouTube Denies $1 Billion Valuation, But Okay with $600 Million

from the overshooting dept

Earlier this week, a number of stories with the phrase “$1 billion” in close proximity to “YouTube” were winding their way through the media, after the company was apparently the belle of the ball at Herb Allen’s annual Sun Valley rich-guy schmoozefest. It seems pretty clear the unprofitable company (with no appearance of a business plan) isn’t worth anything near that, but all the better to fit the Skype Billion-Dollar Buyout Plan, which is based more on hype than business sense or financial performance. But YouTube’s founder is clearing the air in an interview with Marketwatch, where he “brushed aside reports that the value of the company jumped to $1 billion from $600 million because of his appearance at the Allen & Co. confab”. It’s not clear, but the writeup makes it sound like he’s okay with a $600 million valuation, but $1 billion, well, that’s just ludicrous. Wow, such modesty — a new face to the media-driven buyout plan, maybe one a willing buyer will reward with another $400 million.


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Comments on “YouTube Denies $1 Billion Valuation, But Okay with $600 Million”

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15 Comments
thecyrusvirus says:

Re: Wow

Two cents is about what i’d pay for an ad on YouTube. Lots and lots of their video content is streamed and played through other sites and links in blogs so a large proportion of youtube bandwidth isnt even from site visitors.

They have no real target demographic or niche market so ads there will have a minute click-through rate and be to all intents and purposes pointless.

Anyone willing to pay large sums for ads on YouTube would have to be head shot

Fire Isiah NOW and save us says:

The longer they fly solo

…the more money they will burn. The larger their viewer base, the more money they will burn. There is no economy of scale here. If the big media houses don’t buy youtube out (but set up their own video sites)…then youtube is SOL. How many more years can the VCs fund them? 1 million dollar burnrate a month is what I heard. Let this sucka fly solo for another year…then we’ll see it crash.

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