Steve Case: sold AOL to Time Warner for $164bn
Ev Williams: sold Blogger to Google for an undisclosed sum
John Sidgmore: sold UUNet to MFS Communications for $2bn
Ross Perot: sold EDS to General Motors for $2.5bn (in 1984 dollars!)
Just sayin'.
[Yes, 20 years later from the point in time I'm talking about.]
Steve Case: sold AOL to Time Warner for $164bn
[$3 billion isn't cool. You know what's cool? $164 billion is cool.]
Ev Williams: sold Blogger to Google for an undisclosed sum
[Obviously I was referring to Twitter.]
John Sidgmore: sold UUNet to MFS Communications for $2bn
[Brainfart -- I meant John Morgridge.]
Ross Perot: sold EDS to General Motors for $2.5bn (in 1984 dollars!)
[Yeah, but that's when $2.5 billion was real money.]
that being said, the market potential for a google is quite obviously higher than the potential for snapchat i think. I can't imagine a future world where snapchat is worth more than google, and if it is, it's almost certainly because they used that valuation to pivot and make something more worthwhile.
"that being said, the market potential for a google is quite obviously higher than the potential for X i think. I can't imagine a future world where X is worth more than google, and if it is, it's almost certainly because they used that valuation to pivot and make something more worthwhile."
You can only say that with the benefit of hindsight. At the equivalent stage in Google's life, you might well have been equally skeptical of Google -- and a lot of people were, including at various times their founders and their VCs. It was widely known at that time that search was a bad business -- in fact, the assumption based on several years of prior data was that it was a loss leader for portals. Google itself didn't start with the keyword advertising model, they developed that along the way (in part based on work done earlier at Goto.com, which hadn't worked nearly as well for them).
Equally, at the equivalent stage in Microsoft's life, it was well known that PCs were a toy and that people wouldn't pay for software. At the equivalent stage in Oracle's life, it was well known that data belonged in hierarchical databases on mainframes, not in relational databases on Unix servers. At the equivalent stage in Cisco's life, it was well known that proprietary networks like SNA and DECnet were standard among people who paid for things and that the Internet was only a toy for academics. And so forth and so on.
You're mistaken in your analogy.
Regardless of what some people thought they "knew", Microsoft was always in the paid-software business. Microsoft was formed in 1975 and that year, their revenue was $16,000. In 1977 it was $381K (with net income of $112K). 3 years after formation, Microsoft's revenue was $1.3M. Microsoft's business plan was based on selling software and they did that from the beginning.
Snapchat was formed around 3 years ago. At this "equivalent stage", they seem to have zero revenue. It also seems like they are holding out for a better purchase-offer. They seem to be on the familiar VC-guided route of "selling a company and its users" as opposed to the old-fashioned route of "selling a software product/service".
In general, I don't think you can equate the growth strategy/prospects of an independent/self-sufficient company that sells software-products with a company that wishes to sell itself.
Now, snapchat can make money, don't get me wrong. They have a lot of eyeballs and it is worth a big number. I just don't think the number is that big to too many people other than Facebook.