In an alternate universe, AOL is the world’s dominant internet company, worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

Alas, that did not happen in our world. But it could have, former AOL Chief Executive Jon Miller told CNBC on Thursday.

“ “We wanted to take some shots. We had a line on buying YouTube before anybody else. We had an opportunity to step in with Facebook when Yahoo stumbled. We had a chance to maybe to step in to Tencent.” ” — Jon Miller

In an interview, Miller said AOL held acquisition talks with both Facebook and YouTube back in 2006, and weighed taking a large stake in Chinese tech giant Tencent in 2004.