Yahoo once paid 1 billion for an unprofitable tech startup too – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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FTC v. Meta: the antitrust battle over Instagram and WhatsApp

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Yahoo once paid $1 billion for an unprofitable tech startup, too.

Meta is trying to draw an analogy between Yahoo’s $1 billion acquisition of Tumblr in 2013 with Meta’s 2012 acquisition of Instagram for the same price. Tumblr wasn’t making a profit when it was acquired but had a large user base. A big difference, of course, is the trajectory of each startup. When Meta’s attorney asks if Tumblr’s subsequent sale to Automattic was “significantly less” than $10 million, Tucker says, “I saw a joke that it was near the price of a modest home in Silicon Valley.”

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