Step 1. Find interested parties, Step 2. Get Bids. Step 3. Allow other interested parties to counter.

Thats it there's no scam here. Its not even genius its company selling 101. Everyone involved had the opportunity to do their due diligence. Instagram did the exact same thing turning a $500M Twitter offer into a $1B offer from Facebook.

Not even really zero-sum, because selling it to the person valuing it the most (to whom it is most useful) does create value.

But it's not as satisfying as making something that never existed before.

Balls. Go to a commodity exchange and you know how you find the price? The last price paid at auction.

Sometimes the negotiation is disguised, using an order book or dealer system.

But sometimes they even explicitly run a call auction.

All Wall Street is is a continuous auction house.

All Supply/Demand is is a continuous auction.

If anyone got "ripped off" it was the venture capitalists who later threw $41 million at the "Facebook-killer" being developed by one of the few people in the Valley that had barely used Facebook. But again, they were sophisticated specialists who knew how to evaluate risk and do due diligence, so if they were so mesmerised by Bill's confidence in his ability (and his team's track record) they wanted to take a premature punt that size in an already-crowded space it's their own fault.