The $19 billion that Facebook has committed to purchasing WhatsApp is basically unprecedented. It’s an absolutely mind-blowing sum of money to pay to a five year-old company with just 55 employees. It works out to about $350 million per employee.
After that sinks in, consider this: A small team of mobile developers can now reach hundreds of millions of people around the world with their product in just a couple of short years. It’s the kind of opportunity for near-instant wealth creation that has maybe never existed. (Don’t quote me on that, I’m sure there are historical eras I’m forgetting.) But again, 55 employees, 450 million monthly users. The numbers are unbelievable in every respect, and as the number of mobile broadband users expands beyond the 2 billion or so of today, the opportunity only grows.
But forget that for a second. Let’s look backwards.
Given the astronomical acquisition price for the company, it seems like this moment requires a bit of context. Building a company to $19 billion in value traditionally takes decades. The companies listed below are storied brands, many of which have slogged along for years and years, inching up their market caps basis points at a time. Some are valued at around $19 billion, others at much less. In a blink, they've all been matched, or surpassed, in terms of market value, by a no-name startup in Mountain View.
We live in odd, heady times.
(Disclaimer: This is an incomplete list of large-cap companies taken from the Nasdaq website. Please feel free to suggest others below.)
Activison-Blizzard - $13.9B
American Airlines - $12.3B
Akamai - $10.9B
Blackstone Group - $17.8B
Chipotle - $17.1B
Citrix Systems - $10.7B
Coach - $13.5B
Consolidated Edison (ConEd) - $16.2B
Discovery Communicatons - $19.1B
Dr. Pepper Snapple Group - $10.2B
Expedia -$10.2B
The Gap - $19B
Fidelity - $15.8B
Harley-Davidson - $14.1B
Hertz - $11.5B
Icahn Enterprises -$13.1B
The J.M. Smucker Company - $10B
Kohl’s - $11.1B
Kroger - $19.4
Loews - $17B
Macy’s – $19.6B
Marriott International – $15.4B
Mattel - $12B
MGM Resorts - $12.7
Monster Beverage - $12B
Moody’s - $17.08B
News Corp - $10.27B
Nielsen - $17.6B
Nordstrom - $11.4B
Progressive - $14.3B
Ralph Lauren - $14.2B
Red Hat - $11.1B
Royal Caribbean Cruises - $11.4B
Ryanair - $15.5B
Sherwin-Williams - $19.4B
Southwest Airlines - $14.7B
Starwood Hotels & Resorts - $14.9B
Symantec - $14.4B
TD Ameritrade - $184B
The Carlyle Group - $11.1B
Tiffany & Co. – $11.4B
Tyson Foods - $13.1B
Under Armour - $11.4B
Whole Foods Market - $19.3B
Workday - $17B
Xerox - $13.2B