Google looks at acquiring YouTube

Oct 17, 2022

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On 2/7/06, Eric Schmidt wrote:

can I get a quick analysis of the likely cost of acquiring youtube? Eric

From: Salman Ullah
Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2006 9:19 AM
To: Eric Schmidt
Cc: David Drummond; Peter Chane; Sean Dempsey
Subject: Re: youtube

based on sean's discussions with them and their VC (Sequoia) we think it will cost about $50M.

Salman

On 2/8/06, Eric Schmidt wrote:

Would you like us to proceed? Eric

From: Larry Page
To: Eric Schmidt
Sent: Wed, 8 Feb 2006 13:13:40 -0800
Subject: Re: FW: youtube
Cc: [REDACTED], Sergey Brin

Doesn't seem crazy to me…

-L

On 2/8/06, Eric Schmidt wrote:

Please proceed to meet with youtube to discuss a serious offer from Google to acquire them.

My concerns are mostly about their reliance on copyrighted information and we should model their growth etc.

Our primary goal is to get the entire team and leadership .. we will need much more firepower to do everything we want to do.

After you have a meeting with them please let me know likelihood/price etc. and at that point I will talk with Moritz as well.

Thanks Eric

From: Sean Dempsey
Sent: Monday, February 13, 2006 12:54 PM
To: Eric Schmidt
Cc: Salman Ullah; David Drummond; Larry Page; Sergey Brin
Subject: Re: youtube

I spoke with youtube on friday, over the weekend and this morning. the net is that they want something in the $500M range, something like "the myspace deal".

We had planned to meet in person this morning but when I floated a potential range up to $200M to test whether this myspace comment was real, they decided it wasn't worth having the meeting.

The decision was apparently made by the 3 person board, which includes the [REDACTED] at [REDACTED] and another advisor. we believe the founders own >50% of the company.

So they are incredibly optimistic about their future. They are still planning to send us thoughts on how we could work together commercially which we've asked them for.

From: Eric Schmidt
To: Sean Dempsey
Cc: Salman Ullah, David Drummond, Sergey Brin
Subject: RE: youtube
Sent: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 16:17:50 -0800

Thanks. Please do figure out a way for us to help them achieve their vision. We won't be pursuing them as an acquisition.. Eric

[This document is from the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee (2020).]

Original tweet

Previously: Larry Page: "I think we should look into acquiring [YouTube]"