Posted on 02/12/2007 3:00:16 PM PST by nickcarraway
Television talk show host Maury Povich hasn’t always been a big fan of YouTube Inc. because the online video sharing pioneer frequently displays unauthorized clips from his copyrighted program.
But Povich’s feelings softened a few days ago when he found out that he was on a long list of universities, foundations, Silicon Valley executives and, yes, television personalities who will share in the windfall from YouTube’s recent $1.76 billion sale to Internet search leader Google Inc. His windfall: More than $80,000.
“It’s like I caught lightning in a jar,” Povich said in a Thursday interview. “I had no idea I even owned a part of YouTube.”
Povich’s piece of action came through a small contribution he made a few years ago to a venture capital fund managed by Sequoia Capital, a Menlo Park firm that parlayed an $11.5 million investment in San Bruno-based YouTube into one of Silicon Valley’s biggest paydays since the dot-com boom.
The biggest winners, not surprisingly, are YouTube’s co-founders, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, who, collectively, received nearly $700 million worth of Google stock — the prized currency used to finance the acquisition.
That payoff punctuates the meteoric rise of a pop culture phenomenon that began in a Menlo Park garage two years ago when the Hurley, Chen and Karim — all of whom are in their 20s — began working on a sketchy idea for a video sharing site that was initially funded by credit card debt.
The Google deal also made instant millionaires out of at least 18 other YouTube employees, including Hurley’s younger brother, Brent, and the office manager, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Wednesday. Hurley’s parents also are getting nearly $5 million in Google stock.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Ping
Capitalism still works.
Amazing, Isn't it. Imagine how it would work, if there weren't all kinds of idiotic regulations. They probably would have gotten more if Sarbanes Oxley didn't exist, since their would be an IPO market.
the eclectic list of early investors in Google
included
golfer Tiger Woods,
former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger,
movie-star-turned-politician Arnold Schwarzenegger and
basketball star Shaquille O’ Neal.
What a country. ;-)
It's the only way anyone would watch your program, Maury you schmuck.
SOX...was it only Ron Paul and Jeff Flake who voted against that? The rest (in both houses and both parties) seemed to think that the fix for messes caused by regulations in the first place was to introduce still more regulations.
I don't know who voted against it, but even Charles Schumer admits it's hurting U.S. business and is a bad law.
They had better build some high walls to repel the politicians who will be after their money. They have no idea how much they are loved.
In the bigger picture, the net transfer of wealth and power continues to those who act in the name of convergence, free speech and capitalism--but who seek to kill it.
One has to wonder if the irony of the situation escapes these simple minded yahoos. Capitalism for me but not for thee???
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