Yahoo Could've Bought Google In 2001

Terry Semel, Yahoo's CEO feels sad about something that didn't happen in 2001. Semel met with Larry Page and Sergey Brin and talked about the possibility of acquiring Google. Google's founders said that Google was worth $1 billion, but it's not for sale. After a week, Google's price was $3 billion. Terry Semel didn't understand why Google had a such a big price, since their revenue was almost non-existent.

"And I said, well you still have the same business you had two weeks ago, right? Which adds up to nothing. So obviously we couldn't and didn't buy the company."

Well, that's lack of vision. Google had a lot of problems convincing investors that a search engine is a good place to put your money. Andy Bechtolsheim, one of Sun's founders was the first to invest $100,000 in Google.