Kevin Ryan was behind New York’s biggest tech exit, DoubleClick, which sold to Google for billions. So he has a little more gravitas than most when talking big zeros, declaring today that Facebook (META) will one day be valued at $1,000,000,000.
“I think there are literally thousands of companies who get a tremendous amount of value from Facebook and are not paying for it. I have confidence that at some point Facebook will force all of them, including my own companies, to start paying for that,” Ryan said during an interview at the Silicon Alley Insider 2011 conference.
“Everything they have done is consistent with what people want to do on the platform, they are not building electric cars,” said Ryan, in a quick jab at Google. “They are adding tremendous value. It’s like Google back in 2001, when businesses were secretly saying, I am spending ten cents to get a customer I make ten dollars on. Well fast forward ten years later and you are paying $10 for that customer.”
As for the current climate, Ryan says he decided to raise more money than he need with Gilt Groupe, which recently grabbed $138 million in funding, because the conditions are so good. “There is zero chance that there is a bubble, and anyone who says that is crazy. Is there a chance that companies could be overvalued by 25%, a bubble is when companies are ten times what they should be.”
