Facebook turned down Yahoo&#x27;s $1bn offer because Mark Zuckerberg realised that Yahoo didn&#x27;t really understand social, and that they were making an offer because &#x27;social is the hottest thing right now&#x27;. It&#x27;s entirely understandable that a founder wouldn&#x27;t want to sell their business to someone who wouldn&#x27;t know what to do with it.<p>A Facebook competitor faced with an offer from Facebook would not have that problem. It&#x27;s very likely that the competitor and Facebook would be <i>very</i> well aligned strategically. Selling would mean the competitor would get to where they want to go. Very few founders would say capable of saying no.