Digg is Worth More than $60m
- 18
- Add a Comment
The Kevin Rose cover story in BusinessWeek magazine has been receiving a lot of attention in the blogosphere. The cover claims that “This Kid Made $60 Million In 18 Months.” Pundits are largely taking umbrage, as collected by ValleyWag:
- How Paul Scrivens, Mike Rundle, Colin Devroe, and Tyme White All Made Billions In 12 Months
- The Users shouldn’t be paid… but I’ll take $60M
- Business Week on the Valley Boys
- The New Brat Pack of Silicon Valley
- Forget Paper Millionaire, Digg Founder’s A Vapormillionaire
- OMG, Like, Totally, Digg
- Don’t believe BusinessWeek’s bubble-math
I agree with what some of these guys are saying: the number is wholly inaccurate. Kevin and the Digg brand are likely worth twice that amount.
- Community is worth its weight in gold. So, let’s have every Digg member submit their weight and then compare that resulting number to today’s gold prices. My guess is that it’s slightly more than
$60m$200m. Bubble or no bubble, COMMUNITY LIKE THIS DOES NOT DISAPPEAR!!! - Brand is worth twice the amount of your community. Again, let’s do some weight measurements here.
- Kevin’s a good guy - genuinely. I knew this from the first time I met him on the Call for Help set (he was sitting with Cat and Morgan in the chat area for TSS). And you know what? I’ll trade one Kevin for a hundred Silicon Valley snakes any day of the week. A good guy is priceless (especially in this industry).
- I bet any businessperson on this planet would give up their testicles (or ovaries) to have the power of Digg at their disposal. How much is that worth? Digg is just getting warmed up.
- Let’s just stop and think about how much revenue has been generated from the sites that have been digg’ed. Not Digg, itself - the pages that get featured. That number is likely in the millions, I’d imagine.
Now, for those who would quibble over BusinessWeek using the word “made,” I offer you a definition from Answers.com. According to them, “made” is an adjective:
- Produced or manufactured by constructing, shaping, or forming
- Produced or created artificially
- Having been invented
- Assured of success
Uh huh… so, what’s the problem with “made” here? As with any word defined in the English language, it only needs to assume a single meaning. I read it as “Assured of success.” And yes, I believe that Digg (and its entire community) is worth more than $60m $200m today. Then again, I’m an idealistic sonofabitch. Even if Kevin was a billionaire, I’d still insist on buying lunch for him.
I went back and corrected the numbers - though my position still stands. The value of both Rose and Digg are beyond imagination.


18 Comments
Quiero Todo
November 30th, 1999
at 12:00am
en donde el sol siempre sale y te ilumina un WiFi Hot spot a donde quiera que vayas y que hayas creado el sitio de conversación social más revolucionario de la 3ra hola. Y sobre todo todo bien con que hayas logrado un valor para la empresa de 60 millones de dólares. También entiendo que no te querés casar pero… Dear Kevin Rose, I am writting this leeter with the only purpose of getting to know why is it, that when you said, “Dude, We should really get back to japan
Mike Marusin
August 4th, 2006
at 7:34pm
I completely agree with you Chris… I think the people who are complaining about this article/cover story are the ones who wish they were in Kevin’s shoes… Great post!
Anonymous
August 4th, 2006
at 7:45pm
Chris, did you read the article? It states Digg’s worth something like $200M by unnamed sources. The $60 M figure would be Kevin’s share based on 30% ownership of the company.
Jim
August 4th, 2006
at 8:25pm
I couldn’t say it better Chris. And this to be created by such an authentically nice guy. It is fun as an old Screensavers/Call For Help fan to see the alumni of the shows (including you) succeed. One other point about “community”… I would speculate that one reason for the early success of digg is the Screensavers/Call For Help/TWiT fans who are very loyal and a powerful demographic that spread the word.
$60-million — can you Digg that? » Mathew Ingram: mathewingram.com/work
August 4th, 2006
at 8:37pm
[...] In reality, of course, Kevin hasn’t really “made” anything, regardless of how Chris Pirillo wants to define the word. Or rather, he has made something — a tremendously useful and popular social-networking tool — but he certainly hasn’t made $60-million. It’s possible that the “people in the know” quoted in the article are right about the value of Digg, but that still doesn’t mean Kevin Rose has “made” $60-million. Even if you assume that venture capitalists put enough money into the company to give it a value of $200-million, he still wouldn’t come close to having actually “made” $60-million. [...]
Christian Cadeo
August 4th, 2006
at 9:29pm
Chris,
Although I don’t doubt that digg is worth it’s weight in gold, the valuation right now is purely specluatve. I would wait until the next round of vc funding to see what mulitply it should be getting. Of course if it gets bought out then this is a moot issue.
Zoltak SMASH!
August 5th, 2006
at 3:26am
How much is Digg worth? Related Article
robhyndman.com » Blog Archive » Now Journalists Can be Bloggers, Too
August 5th, 2006
at 6:52am
[...] For myself, I’m starting to think that maybe now, journalists can finally be bloggers, too. Update: Chris Pirillo gets all semantic on the issue, and makes a meal out of the word “made” in BW’s title. Uh, OK. But his larger point seems to be that the $60M number is understated, largely because, as he says, “community like this does not disappear”. Until it does, of course. Demographically, Diggers come from the least loyal group of ‘customers’ out there, and when the next cool thing comes along they, just like every other group of them the ‘net (or anything else, for that matter) has seen so far, will evaporate in a heart beat. Related Posts [...]
totoro
August 5th, 2006
at 7:24pm
Nice take on the issue, esp. this point:
I bet any businessperson on this planet would give up their testicles (or ovaries) to have the power of Digg at their disposal. How much is that worth?
According to Jason Calcanis, it can be bought for $10k a contributor. Good luck with that.
Paul Colligan’s Profitable Podcasting » On Business Week, Kevin Rose, Valuation and Marketing By Podcast
August 7th, 2006
at 8:54am
[...] Kevin Rose of Digg.com and the Digg Nation Podcast has been getting some very nice press lately. The 10k foot overview, Business Week is saying he’s worth kabillions and a bunch of very jealous types disagree. One sane voice out there, Chris Pirillo, but I’m not too hot on his math either. [...]
David Geller
August 7th, 2006
at 9:19pm
Digg is worth whatever it’s sold for. It’s that simple. There is absolutely no way anyone can know for sure, or place a very accurate value on its worth at this time. Right now it’s hot. What if you discover next month a platform even more amazing? Who saw Flickr coming? YouTube? The PointCast folks thought their value was high and would remain so. Didn’t happen. Digg is great. Makes ./ look slow and cumbersome. But think about what’s behind Digg. As I said at Gnomedex - there’s not a whole lot there that other really smart and motivated people can’t build quickly. Brand value? Sure - for many of us. But, it’s inflated, like many things in the tech space. Stop 10 people you know at random in your local grocery store and ask them if they know the Digg brand. How about AOL or Yahoo?
While AOL and Calcanis may have failed in round one of their pursuit of Digg-like status, I really don’t think the Digg turf is all that protected. Microsoft? Google? Yahoo? They might all be able to mount a very serious challenge. Maybe they’re just waiting, perhaps wisely, for there to be a market.
Everyone is saying they think Digg is worth gazillions. Could someone please express why they feel this way? What comparatives are being evaluated?
marusin.com
August 9th, 2006
at 10:12am
» Digg is Worth More than $60m ~ Chris Pirillo
LUX.ET.UMBRA
August 11th, 2006
at 6:02pm
Read the latest brouhaha about how Digg is worth $200 million and Kevin Rose is $60 million richer in Businessweek. Amusingly enough, it’s all BS mathematics and Digg hype. Chris Pirillo of Lockergnome fame says that KR and his band are worth more than $200 million due to the Digg community. I would agree that the community is worth more than $200 million but not Kevin Rose and his band. Sorry Chris, but this is where you and I part in idealogies.
ETech@Work
August 24th, 2006
at 12:30pm
Web 2.0 Entrepreneurs: Can You Digg It?…
As you can
see, I’m still struggling to keep up with the blog. It’s been a hectic couple
of weeks, ……
nerds mandam bem at Caveat Emptor
September 4th, 2006
at 1:23am
[...] Kevin Rose é um dos nerds mais famosos do mundo atualmente, graças a ter fundado o Digg e a Revision3. Apresentador de programa geek, hacker, criador de um dos maios famosos sites da nova bolha da Web, e dono de um império que supostamente rende US$ 60 milhões em 18 meses. [...]
» Digg Case Study: Why techies are an important audience - Startup Review Blog
October 15th, 2006
at 7:54pm
[...] $60m�, Chris Pirillo blog, August 4, 2006 Nice commentary from Chris on why Digg is valuable. E-Mail [...]
{言多必得} 互�网,创业,投资,翻译
October 24th, 2006
at 7:47pm
notes on Kevin Rose’s presentation at the Future of Web Apps conference. VentureVoice Podcast with Jay Adelson, August 11, 2006 Very long interview with Digg CEO Jay Adelson. Much of the interview is about Jay’s entrepreneurial experiences. “Digg is Worth More than $60m�, Chris Pirillo blog, August 4, 2006 Nice commentary from Chris on why Digg is valuable.
在路上» Blog Archive » Digg 案例分æžÂ?:为什么技术人群是é‡Â?è¦Â?çš„çâ€?¨æˆ·
October 25th, 2006
at 6:00am
[...] “Digg is Worth More than $60m�, Chris Pirillo blog, August 4, 2006 Nice commentary from Chris on why Digg is valuable. [...]