They better hope this pays off.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Mark Zuckerberg tried to buy Snapchat for $3 billion in cold hard cash within the past few weeks. While Snapchat's co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel has been dispelling any rumors that Facebook and Snapchat have ever spoken about an acquisition, WSJ's report clearly tosses that out. First, Facebook tried to buy the company for $1 billion, and was turned down. Then the company came back again to discuss buying Snapchat for $3 billion or more. Insane. That's like buying three Instagrams (remember, Facebook bought them for $1 billion in 2010.) Gawker is reporting that Zuck even showed up to Evan Spiegel's father's house in order to personally make an offer, but was rejected. Spiegel has reportedly said that the company won't discuss investments or acquisitions until early next year, to give time for the company to grow even more users. Seems like what they're doing is working, though, as the number of "snaps" taken a day has almost doubled to 350 million from the 200 million it had clocked in per day June.
So, $3 billion, huh? Damn.
[via Wall Street Journal]
