It is all over the news so you don’t need a rehash: the rumors were true and Google has acquired YouTube for $1.65B in GOOG stock. There are several remarkable facts in this acquisition, and I only have a few minutes in between meetings (before meeting a company involved in online video something, just as it happens) to mention them:
- Copyright issues, pirated content and YouTube often appear in the same sentence – and now that Google owns the company, you can only bet that they will be solved one way or another.
- Google gets another foot in content hosting, after Gmail, Blogger and GoogleBase. They are not only about organizing the world’s information anymore – just in case you wondered.
- YouTube will remain a separate operation, even physically, which seems to indicate that the risk of messing up the secret sauce post-acquisition has been considered.
- From a pure deal perspective, Sequoia Capital (which also backed YHOO and GOOG) adds another icon to the list of successful exits they have had. Their 30% investment in YouTube for $11.5M has turned into $500M in less than two years – a 43x multiple, or more if the GOOG stock gets a pop over the next 30 days.
- Now that the leader (46% of the online video market) has been taken out, I can’t wait to see what happens next – especially as Yahoo was rumored to be involved in the deal until the last minute, and I am sure that Fox, Viacom, AOL and the others were not too far behind.
I have had a lot of questions over the past 48 hours regarding the timing of tomorrow night’s Search SIG on The growing online video ecosystem. No, I was not aware of anything going down but I thought it was a good time to step back and discuss the developments of that industry. And I am not surprised that Chad Hurley declined to join us because of "his crazy schedule" 
. I look forward to seeing you all planning to attend, and have a great conversation about what happens next with Om and the rest of our panel.
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