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Because they were pretty big acquisitions, built at a time when building to get acquired by bigger internet companies was a completely viable business model.

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The IRS doesn't recognize that business model. If a business has no expectation of making a profit, then it's a hobby.

http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=169490,00.html

At the time, eyeballs had a premium dollar value. Being 2 for 2, Mark is comfortably rich. Clearly in today's market one would need a more concrete revenue model than eyeballs.

Do you have a point?

Of course. The purpose of a business is to generate a profit. Anything else is a con. You might as well post an interview with the founders of Kozmo.

Both these businesses generated a large profit for their founders. Maybe if you learned from guys like Mark, as opposed to the IRS, you'd make a better Hacker News commenter and... I daresay, a better entrepreneur?

Both services, or their descendants, are still in operation at the profitable, ad-driven acquirers, years later.

We can thus assume they have been profitable or fit strategic goals which generate profits elsewhere for these companies.

Like GeoCities?

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