Valuation caps can shape the fundamentals of an exit, redistribute value among stakeholders, or even kill a deal altogether. Never missing an opportunity for a good war story, I’d like to revisit one high-profile transaction, the $650 million acquisition of MySpace by Fox Interactive Media in 2005.
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As a completely made-up statistic, assume that 0.01% of users are sociopaths or predators who cause serious damage to the community and its other members. With 10,000 users, that’s one guy. With a million, it’s a hundred people. With 100 million registered users — the scale at MySpace when I left — it’s ten thousand. That kind of math illustrates why every major consumer Internet company has an abuse team that serves as the first line of defense against all kinds of ugliness.
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Martindale-Hubbell is a legendary name in legal circles, synonymous with legal directories dating back more than 140 years. Long before the Internet existed, a ritual among junior associates at law firms was to pull the weighty leatherbound tome off the shelf, find opposing counsel’s M-H profile and hand out copies to everyone on the deal…
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Having recently met with quite a few founders of tech startups, I’ve identified several recurring themes and questions. I thought it would be helpful to pull together a quick list of resources to help new entrepreneurs avoid reinventing the wheel.
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My goal in publishing Mashtag is to serve as both primary sportscaster and color commentator. As a business lawyer and executive in social media and the broader technology industry, I hope to bring the factual background and analytical tools of the profession to bear to explore some of the most interesting current issues in business, law and public policy.
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