(ownership of craigslist) Craig's story blows up...

EVEN MORE: notice Jim's "hostile takeover" inuendo... with no basis given... D.

MORE: corrected prior mistakes (left the Forbes link in just so it makes some sense...: "Ebay holds a minority ownership interest stake of 28.4% in craigslist"[my emphasis]; this clearly implies this is the percentage ebay currently holds, AFTER the dilution if that's what happened... Jim is vague, ambiguous and melodramatic again... without giving any facts whatsoever... just take a look at Jim's "response" -- in the addendum, in the body of the entry -- to the one relevant question in the comments: did they dilute ebay's shares? "To be perfectly clear, Ebay’s stake in craigslist has not been unfairly diluted as they have claimed." ---> not at all clear... all he's saying is that ... they didn't do it unfairly... which is for the court to decide... the question had been if they diluted the shares... not if they acknowledge they did it unfairly... Alexander Muse: " Did you dilute the minority shareholders? ") D.

ERRATA (please read the comments!) :

Hi, Anonymous!

I tracked down the ebay release just before seeing your comment. (I initially thought Forbes was reliable enough as a source...my bad!) but anyways... the contradiction remains: craigslist claimed ebay acquired only 25% of craigslist in 2004, ebay says it was 28.4%... right after the ebay acqusition Craig specifically said ebay had ONLY 25 %... this core contradiction remains regardless of the details of the dilution...

Delia

MORE: ok, I better go to bed... (sorry if it was a bit confusing -- I just tried very hard to be as fair as possible -- it should be reasonably clear by now... let me know if it's not... thanks!) D.

STILL MORE: Craig retold the 25% story less than a month ago to Sarah Lacy... (0.52 time mark: Sarah:"so ebay owns 25% of craigslist..." Craig: "yes") --> ebay says their shares got diluted by more than 10%. So how could have ebay possibly had 25% in March? NOT strictly impossible but it appears very, very improbable... (they would have had to start with 25% in August of 2004, as Craig said, recently acquire more -- Craig's been telling his story unchanged since 2004 -- than get diluted to 25% or quickly sell the acquired amount... just in time for Craig's interview... ) D.

EVEN MORE: the Chron appears to be so gullible that it makes craigslist's words fit the facts... after the fact --> "In August 2004, eBay acquired a 28.4 percent stake in Craigslist when it bought shares from a former employee" (beginning of 8th paragraph) -- if they would have bothered to check they would have seen that was not what Craig said.... they would have also noticed the discrepancy between 25% and 28.5%

MORE: The New York Time's story on the topic is, again, surprisingly shallow... D.

... and Owen's story sounds even more plausible (that Phillip Knowlton was forced to sell because Craig and Jim were squeezing him out by diluting his shares): ebay is charging that craigslist has been illegally diluting ebay's shares...

Delia

P.S. surprisingly, people -- even Owen -- don't seem to realize that ebay holding 28.4% shares in craigslist (1st sentence of 2nd paragraph) contradicts Craig's story. He said the craigslist former employee sold 25% to ebay -- Craig was also specifically asked on the ebay and craigslist forum if he sold any of his shares to ebay at the time... he said no... so... how did ebay end-up with more than 25% of craigslist? Did Craig lie or did someone else, such as Nancy Melone, also sell shares to ebay? if so... did she do it at the same time? (again, that would mean Craig lied) or later on?

(Mozila help: (ownership of craigslist) Craig's story blows up... )