November 10, 2011
A million dollars isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? A billion dollars.
— Sean Parker *
Trade Me has announced details of their IPO, valuing the company at over $1 billion.
That’s cool!
To those who may say this means the original shareholders sold too soon :
I was very fortunate to have a small role to play in this story. Relative to my contribution, I arguably ended up with far more than my fair share, so I try not to feel too sorry for myself.
This quote was attributed to Parker in The Social Network movie, but according to a recent interview with FT, he doesn’t actually believe it - his words: “[A billion dollars is] not cool. I think being a wealthy member of the establishment is the antithesis of cool. Being a countercultural revolutionary is cool. So to the extent that you’ve made a billion dollars, you’ve probably become uncool.”