Facebook: Embrace Me, My Sweet Embraceable Yu
by John Paczkowski
Posted on July 25, 2007 at 5:24 AM PT
Who says Google is hoarding Silicon Valley’s tech talent? Gideon Yu, a Valley train-hopper with stints at Yahoo and YouTube (in the same year) is leaving the search company to become CFO of Facebook. “I consider it kind of a coup that we were able to recruit him here,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told The Wall Street Journal. “He’s just excellent.”
Yu’s appointment comes amid speculation that Facebook is planning to go public within the next two years, if it’s not acquired first. “Facebook has captured everyone’s imagination,” analyst Greg Sterling told Reuters. “The anticipation is either that it’s going to be a takeover target bigger than YouTube or that it’s going to have a hot IPO like Google.”
Facebook says that’s complete tosh. “We’re not looking to sell the company, and we’re really not looking to IPO any time soon,” Zuckerberg said. “Our board and we believe it’s probably best to push some of these things off as long as possible.”
Unless the company’s approached with an obscenely large offer. Then all bets are off. “If we got an offer from someone for $10 billion, we probably would listen to them,” Peter Thiel, a Facebook director, told TheDeal.com. “I don’t think we’re going to get that offer, and we’re not going to solicit it.”
Comments
Who wouldn’t take $10 billion for a social network wearing platforms?
Posted by Mark Mathson at July 25th, 2007 at 11:17 pm