Web 2.0 Summit: Zuckerberg Admits to Deal-Making

Liz Gannes, Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at 3:44 PM PT Comments (4)

We’re at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, sitting on the floor in a room packed with people here to see Mark Zuckerberg kick off a strong first-day lineup. The Facebook CEO basically just admitted to the much-discussed Facebook $15 billion valuation financing, telling interviewer John Battelle: “It’s going well, we’ve almost wrapped things up.” Battelle was taken aback by the lack of “no comment,” and pressed his luck by noting that the meteoric valuation is “a lot.”

Zuckerberg’s coy, but informative response? “We’ll see.”

We’ll keep you posted.

A couple other quick bits, from responses to audience questions:

Question: Will you allow users to export their data?

Zuckerberg: We want to get there. We realize that this is a flaw within the system now and something we want to get out.

Question: What are the pros and cons of taking additional investment?

Zuckerberg: Taking money allows you to accelerate growth, it allows you to look at other opportunities that you wouldn’t have. Also, there are the standard cons as well.

Moving on, Marissa Mayer from Google (GOOG) comes on and theorizes about all sorts of things, both joking and serious, that Google could do in the health space. She says sharing health information with family and friends and sending x-rays around, for instance, might be things the company will address.

Anssi Vanjoki of Nokia (NOK) then talks about the handset maker’s new N810, a Linux-based tablet. He also pontificates on a context-aware Internet enabled by GPS.

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4 comments so far

October 17th, 2007
5:16 PM PT
Artashes said:

$15 billion!! Holy Guakamoly!

October 18th, 2007
12:29 AM PT

[...] by Om Malik Thursday, October 18, 2007 at 12:29 AM PT | No comments Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg may have kicked off the Web 2.0 Summit by saying nothing, but today was all about MySpace - both in and out of San [...]

October 18th, 2007
9:08 AM PT

[...] Malik Thursday, October 18, 2007 at 9:08 AM PT | No comments It is only a matter of time before Facebook gets some insane amount of money from someone like Microsoft (MSFT), but one thing is clear it isn’t going to sit in the bank [...]

October 18th, 2007
9:59 AM PT
Niraj J said:

If you give $100 to each facbook to join a facbook copy website , you will end up spending 3.5 billion.

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