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Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg rejected Steve Ballmer’s (Microsoft CEO) offer to buy the social network for $15 billion in 2007. Instead, Microsoft invested $240 million for a small stake, and the two companies now work together in a search partnership.

In The Facebook Effect, Kirkpatrick writes that Ballmer asked Zuckerberg ““Why don’t we just buy you for $15 billion?” He was told “I don’t want to sell the company unless I can keep control.”

Kirkpatrick goes on, “Ballmer took this reply as a sort of challenge. He went back to Microsoft’s headquarters and concocted a plan intended to acquire Facebook in stages over a period of years to enable Zuckerberg to keep calling the shots. But Zuckerberg rejected all the overtures.”