That's so much like the early Internet. True fact: Lord Black - Conrad M. Black - was given the opportunity to buy a venture capitalist sized stake of Netscape. He was actually approached by the Netscape team, perhaps by Marc Andreessen himself. (I can't remember if that last bit was so.) His stake would have bee pre-IPO, so he had right in front of his hands the chance to pre-participate in arguably the hottest NASDAQ IPO of 1995. I think he had his opportunity to buy a stake in 1994.

Conrad Black, then still Mr. Black, turned them down flat.

You know why? For a reason that's both quaint and, in its way, common-sensical. He didn't believe a company that gave away its flagship product would ever turn a profit!

True Trivia, from the early days of the Internet...