Digg’s Kevin Rose could already have been a millionaire by now.
Rumors of a Digg buy-out have been around as early as January when Yahoo allegedly offered $30 million for it which Kevin Rose promptly denied.
Then, just mid-August, another story ran on BusinessWeek about the Valley Boys, again with Kevin Rose on the cover image and a headline that says “How this Kid made $60 million in 18 months“. Of course, that was another hypothetical number drawn from some magic calculator somewhere.
Last month would have landed Kevin a jackpot as reports came in that News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch was offering over $100 million for Digg. In Leo Laporte’s TWiT podcast netcast ( This Week in Tech Episode 77: Kiss My Ring, 1:16:25), he mentioned that Kevin (and maybe even CEO Jay Adelson) wanted to take it.
BUT and that’s a big but, the investors weren’t willing to settle with anything less than $150 million. Now, that’s what happens when you take investors. You don’t really get to say when and how you want to get compensated with a pet project that turns out get a lot of attention. Kevin’s original $10,000 capital turned $100 million in 2 years is a huge success. He surely deserves to reap the fruits of his success, and if he wants to cash in now he has every right to do so.
Then again, all these excitement over Digg acquisitions could melt down anytime soon and they better hope that that $150 million will come back bubbling to the surface once more. Otherwise, I just feel sorry for Kevin not getting a real piece of the pie for an idea he built on and worked so hard.
I think Duncan might have felt that same way (or along those lines) when he parted ways with b5media last month.
Ahh and yes, with an estimated 30% stake on Digg, Kevin should really have been a millionaire by now.
He could always sell his stake to the investors — I’m sure they’d be willing to pay him out at the $100 million rate if they think they can sell for $150 mil. If he wants to stay and participate it’s he’ll have to compromise and/or concede based on the % he controls… that’s the nature of all business and most relationships. If you don’t like the rules, don’t play the game.