Path Turned Down $100 Million Dollar Offer by Google-A Good or Bad Decision?

Path is a mobile social network and chat application. Recent news said that the successful application has already been acquired by Daum Kakao. On a letter made by Path CEO and Co-founder found here at http://blog.path.com/post/120147299377/a-new-chapter-for-path, states that they are continuing their mission primarily to the Southeast Asian Market. In order for them to grow, they would need more resources and a larger local team that understands the market more. The amount of the acquisition for the chat application was undisclosed.

Treading the Path to Popularity

Dave Morin was a former employee of the coveted Apple Inc[NASDAQ:AAPL] and Facebook[NASDAQ:FB]. He set his own way and created a mobile social network Path. It made a very good debut in the year 2010 when it was downloaded 1.5 million times and after a few months later it was still going strong and made more downloads. The momentum was so strong that the giant Google Inc[NASDAQ:GOOG] made an offer to buy it for a whopping 100 Million US dollars and a 25 million earn out in the next 4 years.

Morin turned down the offer that shocked many. Dave only spent 3 months developing the product and turned down that much money. Rumor has it, that Dustin Moskovitz who is also Facebook’s cofounder and one of Dave’s investors had a piece of the decision. He admitted his role in the big decision. In the year 2011, it just seemed like the decision was a good one for Path.

Unfortunately a few years later, Path lost its momentum due to the changes in Facebook’s algorithm which is the source of majority of the downloads. The company tried to save it by pivoting and launching it with other applications but none of them actually made it just like how Path did. It just seemed that turning down Google’s offer seemed like a mistake already.

Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel also turned down Facebook’s offer of 3 billion US dollars. He said that ‘the best thing is that, no matter whether or not you sell, you will learn something very valuable about yourself’. Morin also made a fortune in his other endeavors, he is an extremely successful investor, and made a fortune as well in Facebook Stock Options.