Saying YES to $1.65 Billion

YouTube said YES to Google. No surprises there.

Sequoia strikes again. Mike Moritz plays a perfect game. Again.

Moritz leveraged Google with Yahoo, and now he has leveraged YouTube with Google. This time, faster.

All the nuances were thought through. Just in case the SEC raises concerns, notice, Moritz is not on the YouTube Board. Roelf Botta is. (Sorry I said Mark Kvamme, earlier.)

YouTube makes perfect strategic fit for Google. Google had also made perfect strategic fit for Yahoo. (See this video of Terry Semel discussing the Yahoo turn-around, and how he tried to buy Google early on.) Most important nugget – Google got paid $7 Million a year to provide Yahoo with its core search technology for several years. That’s a remarkable additional capital infusion into a young company without any dilution. Google brilliantly leveraged that capital, and built AdWords in parallel, and then beat Yahoo in their own game.

Mike Moritz, I take my proverbial hat off to you. This is, indeed, Venture Capital at its absolute best – creating industries, jobs, wealth, heroes, … Just brilliant!

ps. Don’t forget, Moritz also did Paypal, now resting inside eBay.