I think it is ridiculous he didn't take the $750 million. At that point, what does it matter? If a competitor came along and facebook started going downhill, he would be facing a serious reduction in price. Not worth it in my opinion.

CompBanker’s Career Guidance Services: https://www.rossettiadvisors.com/
 
CompBanker:
I think it is ridiculous he didn't take the $750 million. At that point, what does it matter? If a competitor came along and facebook started going downhill, he would be facing a serious reduction in price. Not worth it in my opinion.

This one in particular stands out!

 
<span class=keyword_link><a href=/company/goldman-sachs><abbr title=Goldman Sachs&#10;>GS</abbr></a></span>:
CompBanker:
I think it is ridiculous he didn't take the $750 million. At that point, what does it matter? If a competitor came along and facebook started going downhill, he would be facing a serious reduction in price. Not worth it in my opinion.

This one in particular stands out!

Facebook and the social media landscape was significantly different in 07.
 
Best Response
whatwhatwhat:
<span class=keyword_link><a href=/company/goldman-sachs><abbr title=Goldman Sachs&#10;>GS</abbr></a></span>:
CompBanker:
I think it is ridiculous he didn't take the $750 million. At that point, what does it matter? If a competitor came along and facebook started going downhill, he would be facing a serious reduction in price. Not worth it in my opinion.

This one in particular stands out!

Facebook and the social media landscape was significantly different in 07.
I stand by my opinion (from five years ago) that he was better off taking the $750 million. There isn't much you can do with $10 billion that you can't do with $750 million. Given the volatility of social media, he could have ended up with $0. When given the choice of $750 sure thing, 90% chance of $10 billion or 10% chance of $0, I would choose the sure thing each and every time. Take a look at MySpace as an example.
CompBanker’s Career Guidance Services: https://www.rossettiadvisors.com/
 

i think the point is that no one comes close and in the foreseeable future i dont think zuckerberg is too worried about anyone seriously posing a threat to what he's doing.

and im sure there's an element of simply liking his job a lot in his decision.

besides, if you were young like him and offered $500mm not too long ago just to see bids crawl up to 1bln, wouldn't you wait around to make history in your own way? barring some really stupid moves and a series of really unfortunate events he's gonna be fine financially anyway.

 
Bondarb:
...social networking sites have proved to have very short life cycles...anybody remember friendtser? It was once the leader of the pack...

I'm not quite sure about this, but I somehow doubt that Friendster had even 1/5th the user base that he has on facebook. Not to mention the amount of time the average user spends on facebook is ridiculous, something like an average of 30 minutes or 1 hour per day.

 
ExGSBanker:
$2bn for Facebook? I'll take the under on that. Much less of a monetization possibility than youtube. Video CPMs are out of control right now which i guess is what makes YouTube worth $1.65bn (I think that price was too high), but facebook doesn't have anything like that...

Agree. Think of this as a capital allocation exercise. 99.999999999999% of this guy's entire net worth is locked up in an illiquid company that operates in a highly volatile/extremely competitive market. If you were worth millions, would you invest your entire fortune on one micro cap tech stock? Of course not. You would develop an effective capital allocation plan to preserve and grow your wealth. Zuckerberg would be prudent to sell and re-allocate his generational wealth.

Facebook and Youtube are the poster children of the web 2.0 bull market. Both companies face similar issues dot-com founders dealt with in the late 90's. Do you cash out (a la Mark Cuban) or do you believe the new economy is here to stay and wait for even greater riches?

Keep in mind that Facebook's target market is extremely fickle. Just look at the sudden hot-to-not demise of "The OC" and the radical changes the music industry has undergone over the last 20 years. When things change, they change fast. There will be a day when facebook experiences a sharp decline (some might even call it a correction). How the company bounces back from this downturn will ultimately determine the long-term success of this company.

 

the avg amount of time that each user spends on facebook is pretty ridiculous but actually friendster at its peak had many more users than facebook. in fact, i think it still does have more users than facebook does.

but i think i'd ultimately disagree with the assessment that the fact that social networking sites have short lifespans applies in this case. i think facebook is a different animal for a few reasons (e.g. it caters to a specific niche market and isnt a sorta faddish general site).

although with like 150 million+ users, MySpace has so much potential as long as News Corp can carefully implement a strategy

 

While Facebook isn't worth even $1 billion at it's current revenue, the fact that every new class of college students is a new subscriber to Facebook. Also, since Facebook opened its services to high-schoolers, it's further ensuring it keeps it market share in the future. Facebook is the 33th most visited site on the internet worldwide and 8th most visited site on the internet in America and it's percentage of total internet activity is consistently increasing. I do not doubt that the revenue generated through ads will reach $1 billion annually as companies begin to pay more for the prime advertising spots.

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=facebook.com http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_sites?cc=US&ts_mode=country&lang=none

http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_500

YouTube is now the 5th most visited site worldwide, which gives it advertising revenues that will end up covering for the cost of it's buyout within a few years. I say this because last years total online revenue was $16 billion and that number will only grow as more and more people start using the internet.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/10/17/technology/google_ad_revenue/index.htm?…

Unless YouTube is forced to close down due to copyright violations, which is possible, YouTube will be a cash cow for Google.

 

You right on with the fact that facebook has found its niche. I feel that facebook is not a flash in the pan and will become synonymous with American culture. I feel that facebook will soon branch out and will become more of a networking site much the same as doostang. I was basing my assement on rumors, however I believe that the price will be no less than 1.75-1.8 billion.

 

I've been on facebook for about 10 months. At the "worst" time, I probably did spend 90 minutes on facebook per day. These days, I often forget to check facebook for a day. And when I do, it's a quick in and out. Many of my friends are unreachable on facebook, because they have left it. However, I have friends across the globe, whose pictures (etc.) I wouldn't see without facebook, so I see facebook being an important part of my life for a long time to come.

So, in my experience, the hype dies down eventually, but many people find it just as useful as their mobile phone in keeping up to date with their friends.

 

I think facebook's biggest mistake was opening membership to anyone and everyone. When it was exclusively college, every incoming college freshman made an account as soon as they plugged in their computer at school. It was new, exciting, and required reading material if freshman wanted a social life (ok, exaggeration, but a healthy chunk of incoming students NEED it). This would have created a great hype cycle for Facebook. Incoming freshman rush to Facebook because they want to connect with other people at school (including 21-y.o. seniors. How else can they get booze), as well as keep in touch with HS buddies. By opening registration up to HS students, the the hype is weakened to some degree.

If Zuckerberg had kept HSers out, then he can focus exclusively on expanding functionality forward. Now that he has every college student on as an undergraduate, what can he do to keep alumni coming back? Sure, this method grows slower, but I think it builds a more solid, sustainable user base.

 

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