"To sell or not to sell. That's the major dilemma founders around the world face: Once they've started to get big enough to attract the attention of buyers, they face the decision of whether to cash out now, or use the compliment as fuel to go even bigger. While it may seem like a no-brainer to say yes to an acquisition to the tune of millions-or even billions-it can be hard to later rest easy thinking about how much more you could have made independently."
"In 2006, he received massive offers -$750 million from Viacom and $900 million from Yahoo-to buy out Facebook. But, as a 22-year-old, he was bullish that he still had plenty of runway left. "We're focused on building the company for the long term," Zuckerberg said at the time. Today, the social platform now known as Meta is worth just over $1.9 trillion-a 2,100x increase over two decades. And Zuckerberg's own wealth has ballooned to over $260 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index."
"When YouTube's first-ever video-"Meet me at the zoo" -went live in 2005, no one could have expected that the video platform would explode onto the internet. The growth was so substantial that just over a year after founding, cofounders Chad Hurley, Steven Chen and Jawed Karim decided that Google's $1.65 billion offer was too good to resist. "This is great," Hurley said in a video posted when the sale was in fall 2006."
Founders frequently face a choice between accepting acquisition offers and continuing to grow independently. Early exits can provide immediate wealth but risk forfeiting much larger future value if growth accelerates. Mark Zuckerberg declined multi-hundred-million-dollar offers in 2006 and later built Meta into a roughly $1.9 trillion company, multiplying value over decades and creating massive personal wealth. Other founders, like Evan Spiegel of Snap, also resisted acquisition offers and retained substantial company value. Conversely, YouTube founders accepted Google's $1.65 billion offer early, illustrating that some exits lock in significant returns despite later platform expansion. Outcomes depend on timing, market opportunity, and execution.
Read at Fortune
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