Today at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York, AOL co-founder (and former CEO) Steve Case took the stage to talk with Michael Arrington. He was full of interesting things to say — especially since current AOL CEO Tim Armstrong was on the stage earlier and the two just celebrated AOL’s 25th anniversary. But the funniest little anecdote from Case involved Yahoo.
People may recall that there was talk that Yahoo would buy and/or merge with AOL two years ago as Yahoo was being pursued by Microsoft. But what you may not recall is that back in the 1990s, when AOL was at the height of its power, Case actually offered to buy Yahoo. Yahoo obviously didn’t accept the offer. But they may have if the offer were just a little higher, Case says.
So how much was the offer? $2 million. Why? Because Yahoo had just two employees at that point: Jerry Yang and David Filo. This price made sense to AOL since they had just bought the early search engine, WebCrawler, in 1995 for $1 million (because it had one employee — Brian Pinkerton).
Case said that he thinks if AOL had gone to $3 million, Yang and Filo would have sold. Instead, later that year, they raised their first major rounds of funding – totaling about $3 million from Sequoia. And the rest is history (both good and bad).
AOL is a global advertising-supported Web company, with display advertising network in the U.S., a substantial worldwide audience, and a suite of popular Web brands and products. The company’s strategy focuses on increasing the scale and sophistication of its advertising platform and growing the size and engagement of its global online audience through leading products and programming. History of Aol: AOL was founded in the early 1980’s as Control Video Corp, with an online service, Gameline, for the Atari 2600 console. ...
Yahoo was founded in 1994 by Stanford Ph.D. students David Filo and Jerry Yang. It has since evolved into a major internet brand with search, content verticals, and other web services. Yahoo! Inc. (Yahoo!), incorporated in 1995, is a global Internet brand. To users, the Company provides owned and operated online properties and services (Yahoo! Properties, Offerings, or Owned and Operated sites). Yahoo! also extends its marketing platform and access to Internet users beyond Yahoo! Properties through its distribution network...
Steve Case is one of America’s best-known and most accomplished entrepreneurs and philanthropists, and a pioneer in making the Internet part of everyday life. Steve co-founded America Online (AOL) in 1985, when the Internet was in its infancy. Under Steve’s leadership, AOL became the world’s largest and most valuable Internet company, and helped drive the worldwide adoption of a medium that has transformed business and society. AOL’s early focus on ease of use and social media set...
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