(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... )

Has Craig already soldout?

MORE: re: "Craig's sellout": the idea was that the "employee sell off" was a necessary cover up, Craig couldn't have straight out sold his own shares and gotten away with collecting huge financial benefits while in the same time keeping the trust of the users -- the ebay and craigslist special forum seems to be missing those threads...[beginning of the P.S. to that entry]) D.

some people thought so back in August 2004 (when he wasn't exactly forthcoming in terms of his control over and the details of the 25% sell to ebay: ... but in any case, he may well be just a minority shareholder at this point, owning something in the vicinity of what ebay owns (at a minimum, it seems that aside from the 25% he appears to have given to Phillip Knowlton, he gave craigslist shares at least to two more people: Nancy Melone -- the former craigslist CEO-- and Jim Buckmaster -- the current craigslist CEO)

Delia

P.S. even if not directly (althought some people thought that was also the case) Craig appears to have benefited financially from the sell to ebay -- craigslist got huge publicity as a result, that seems to have helped a lot... financially... (in terms of craigslist's profits)

P.P.S. hmm... wondering if Craig's untold "part" in the ebay sale -- at least one of them -- was to stay involved with craigslist (ebay's money could have turned to dust if Craig just quit... or sold.. or whatever: a big part of the craigslist myth appears to be the idea that Craig is out there watching...:could ebay have required that Craig stays on indefinitely as a condition of the 25% sale that benefited all craigslist shareholders, including Craig?) D.

what happened with Nancy Melone's share of craigslist?

early on, there were only three people at craigslist: Craig, Nancy Melone (listed as CEO) and Phillip Knowlton... even if Phillip was the one who sold the 25% to ebay and not Nancy, as I though might have happened (Craig says the one who sold was a "he," so IF Craig can be trusted not to straight out lie... Nancy didn't sell to ebay), what did Nancy do with her share? (Nancy left craigslist on unequivocally bad terms...)

Delia

P.S. a 50/25/25 split between Craig, Nancy and Phillip makes sense in the light of what Craig has said about his shares of craigslist having gone under 50% only when he made Jim CEO

craigslist ownership: who sold to ebay?

UPDATE

not as clear as it may seem: Craig said it was a former employee... which one? some guessed Phillip Knowlton (who was craigslist's PR person for a while); Craig hasn't confirmed the name as far as I'm aware and some posters on the "ebay and craigslist" forum suggested Craig couldn't be trusted -- just looked at his public statements and pointed out problems with them and reasons to doubt his story -- there may be some truth to that (to get to the specific discussion forum, check out Craig's blog around the date ebay bought the shares -- there should be a link to the special forum)

If an former employee sold, I think it could have been Nancy Melone (she was definitely no fan of Craig's by that time...). Some people were suggesting Craig forced her out. Although Nancy was listed as CEO on the craigslist page, Craig has claimed she was NOT a CEO but just an employee... Well, why on earth would Craig have allowed that title to go on the craigslist page, then? I tend to believe Nancy...

Delia

P.S. I have a whirl of things going on at the moment and very little time to spend on this -- let me know if you find the things I referred to! (the link to the special forum, the thread on it pointing out problems with Craig's public statements on the issue, the article that suggests Craig forced Nancy out, the article that identifies the employee who sold as Phillip Knowlton; the article where Craig is quoted -- I believe -- to have said that Nancy was not craigslist's CEO; the archived page of craigslist where Nancy is listed as CEO -- that link should already be on this blog; archived craigslist page that shows Phillip Knowlton as PR rep or something like that). thanks! D.