Wildbear

“Son arrived at Yahoo’s office looking as slight and uncommanding as ever. But he brought a bazooka. In a bid without precedent in the history of the Valley, he proposed to invest fully $100 million in Yahoo. In return he wanted an additional 30 percent of the company. Son’s bid implied that Yahoo’s value had shot up eight times since his investment four months earlier. But the astonishing thing about his offer was the size of his proposed check: Silicon Valley had never seen a venture stake of such proportions.[21] The typical fund raised by a top-flight venture partnership weighed in at around $250 million, and there was no way it would put 40 percent of its resources into a single $100 million wager.[22] Private-equity investors and corporate acquirers sometimes made investments in the $100 million range, but in return they expected to take full control of companies.[23] Son, in contrast, would be a minority investor and on an unheralded scale. Because he had SoftBank’s corporate balance sheet behind him, he could pump in fully one hundred times more capital than Sequoia had provided when Yahoo got started. After Son dropped his bombshell, Yang, Filo, and Moritz sat in silence. Disconcerted, Yang said he was flattered but didn’t need the capital.[24] “Jerry, everyone needs $100 million,” Son retorted.[25]”
― Sebastian Mallaby, The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future