Sam Parr explores how Adblock and Adblock Plus generate massive revenue. Eyeo, which owns Adblock Plus, filed $44 million in revenue and $26 million in profit in 2017 with over 100 million users. Chrome extensions have read/write access to all your browsing data, making them a serious security risk if ownership changes hands.
I started, I, I, I got kind of curious. So there's two extensions that caught my, caught, caught my attention. The first, and they're basically the same thing with almost exactly the same name. The first is this thing called Adblock. I think that's the one I use. The second one is called Adblock Plus. So that's why it's a little confusing. And so Adblock was created by one guy in Georgia named Michael Gunlack and he, uh, uh, he. Just kind of built this thing in 2009 and he's been the only employee the whole time. And I went to his personal website to learn about him and he only has 55 followers on, uh, Twitter. His website is called sorryrobot.com. That's his personal website. And he has like Python projects, a Unity game that he built called Asteroids, and he even has an MP3 of him singing a Christmas song at church during Christmas time.
This is like, by the way, his LinkedIn, His job description is just a guy. Uh, he lives in Duluth, Georgia, and it says, I am not available for work. Please do not contact me about job opportunities. I created Adblock, the most popular Chrome extension for Google, uh, Chrome extension and for Safari with around 20 million users. It's neat. Before that, I did some other neat things.
And he was the only employee. And then I did some research on his competitor called Adblock Plus. Now this company, they have a few bit, few more employees. I think they've got 20 or 30 people. And because they're based in Europe, when you're a European company, oftentimes, at least in England, and I know it's a lot of the, a lot of case in different European countries, if you make over $20 million in revenue, you basically have to file a report that reveals your revenue and profit. And so I went and looked at this company called Eyeo. It's called Eyeo. They own Adblocker Plus. In 2017, they did $44 million in revenue and $26 million in profit, which is astounding. And they had at least 100 million users. However, if you look in the Chrome plugin store, uh, Adblock Plus has around 150,000 reviews and it says they've got over 10 million users. If you look at Adblock, which is the one founded by this one guy, they've got something like 300,000 reviews and also it says 10 million users. And so there's potential that this one guy had a business making all of this money, tens of millions of dollars a year, very likely, tens of millions of dollars a year in profit, just off a Chrome extension. Is that amazing?
This is amazing. I'm still on this guy Michael Gunlock's, uh, website, sorryrobot.com/resume.pdf, and I think you said this, but I was reading while you were talking. So he was an engineer at Google working on Google Ads and Google AdSense. Did you already say that part?
No.
And he worked on Google, and basically he goes, 'Now fuck that, I hate these ads.' And so his job was, he goes, 'At Google, I kept the global Google Ads and AdSense networks alive and kicking. Um, in my spare time, I built this other thing, and I built this other thing.' Uh, you know, like, because Google has that 20% time, he's like, 'I built this JavaScript framework, blah blah.' So basically, he goes from working at Google on Google AdWords and AdSense to creating AdBlock and, and makes $20 million— uh, it makes more than that, uh, off 20 million users who, who love this thing.
And what year did you work at Google? I believe like '05, 2005.
Yeah. So which is like right after the IPO basically.
Yeah. So he probably made $30 million at Google, like collectively. It's, that's what it's worth now.
I, I held it. Yeah.
If he held it. So he made tens of millions of dollars off that. And then reportedly, now the thing about this guy is everything's very quiet about this guy. He's hard to find. Everything's impossible. However, I think in 2015, an anonymous buyer bought Adblock.
Interesting.
There's a world where it could have been sold for like $200 or $300 million. I mean, there, there's a world where that exists. Uh, maybe it was lower, but it was, it's a, it's a huge profit.
He stopped, he, he stopped working on Adblock or, you know, it sold probably 2015, which is kind of scary because these Chrome extensions are a giant security hole for people because Chrome extensions can like read and write all the data on your, as you browse the web. So that's all, every email you're writing, the text is, can be picked up by these Chrome extensions. And even if they start off safe, because you know, just a guy from Duluth, Georgia built it and he's an engineer who has the right intentions, somebody who buys it with the wrong intentions can really like, uh, do some dirty stuff.
Yeah.
Uh, you know, with, with the data and, and even modifying it and things like that. So you gotta be careful with Chrome extensions. I try to install the minimum amount of Chrome extensions as possible.
Yeah, they are pretty scary and yeah, they're nuts. And the, but it's a wild business. I think that what, here's, here, so I love these extension style businesses.
