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

from the overshooting dept

Fri, Jul 28th 2006 11:33am — Carlo Longino

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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15 Comments

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Yet another Anonymous Coward, 28 Jul 2006 @ 11:44am

Now the best value tube of the Internet!
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- Cheapskate, 28 Jul 2006 @ 12:50pm
  
  Media windfall
  I'd be willing to hype them for a lot less than that...say $150 million
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  - Anonymous Coward, 28 Jul 2006 @ 2:49pm
    
    Re: Media windfall
    on what account?
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  - DittoBox, 30 Jul 2006 @ 10:40pm
    
    Re: Media windfall
    Screw that! I'd take 10 million! (gotta save some for a McLaren or Koenigsegg, or something more modest like an Aston Martin...)
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Jul 2006 @ 1:22pm

Please change this to the "One born every minute" department . . .
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fsckr, 28 Jul 2006 @ 1:31pm

Based on??
I'm not sure I get it, what is their valuation based on?

Their millions of users?? Well I have thousands of users on my site. Can I claim its value as being in the millions? Probably not. So what I want to know is: why the elevated valuations?
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tehdirtaddict, 28 Jul 2006 @ 1:37pm

The internet is a series of tubes
if 1 is worth $600 million, how much are worth therest :D
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You people are all wrong here..., 28 Jul 2006 @ 2:53pm

They are worth 2 Billion. The future potential of youtube is the sky.

Get a life and learn to recognize a bargain when you see one!
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dude, 28 Jul 2006 @ 3:24pm

I like beer
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Jul 2006 @ 5:13pm

Sex Kills!
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Sean, 28 Jul 2006 @ 7:04pm

Wow
I'd love to be that guy. Though I can see how they valuated how it's worth 600 million. With how many users there are you could basically put some ads up there and make them pay millions of dollars just to put them on.

That's my two cents.
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- thecyrusvirus, 29 Jul 2006 @ 7:21am
  
  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
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Lord Gauron, 29 Jul 2006 @ 5:19pm

They could have ads in their video streams. Before the "real content".
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Fire Isiah NOW and save us, 30 Jul 2006 @ 3:32pm

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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eric martin, 31 Jul 2006 @ 2:08pm

Youtube is worth $500 billion !!!!
Easily !

Everyone loves crappy low res macromedia flash movies !
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