phew.
This strikes me as one of those cases of entrepreneurs and board members getting a bit too optimistic. Five hundred and fifty million dollars is nothing to sneeze at. It’s a lot of money. It would have (presumably) made the founders rich, delivered some nice cash to employees and given Yelp’s investors a nice return. Yelp is now moving forward on its own (presumably) in the hope that they will one day be worth more money.
It’s important to consider how long it will take for Yelp to be worth more money. One year? Two? Three? What’s the execution risk? The market risk? How much will Yelp have to be worth three years from now to make this a good bet? Probably somewhere around a billion dollars. Will that happen? I don’t know. $550mm for work done already is no joke.
I don’t know all the details, obviously, but the first thing that ran through my head on reading this was: “That’s pride fucking with you. Fuck pride. Pride only hurts, it never helps.” - Marsellus Wallace
