Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is only 23 yrs old and already owner and founder of one of Silicon Valley’s most sought after properties. Wall Street is completely infatuated and consumed with this man’s every move. Will he sell? Will he open the company up to major outside investors such as Microsoft who is rumored to want to lay $500million in Zuckerberg’s hands for a potential %5 stake in the company which would value Facebook at $15billion.
Zuckerberg has already raised $37.7million from venture capitalists. Yahoo was interested in buying Facebook for a reported $1billion and Zuckerberg verbally agreed to sell but then Yahoo’s stock price plunged 22 percent overnight and Yahoo’s then CEO Terry Semel lowered the offer to $800million, but Zuckerberg and his board walked away from the offer after that. Yahoo then returned with the original $1billion offer but it was too late.
Facebook is now the most buzzed about company in Silicon Valley and Zuckerberg is continuously compared to visionaries like Steve Jobs (Apple, ipod, iphone) and Bill Gates. Facebook has opened up a platform for independent developers to implement software for the 40million some registered users. Since then some 3,200 new applications have sprung up on the site, a number that is growing at about 180 a week.
Facebook is generating more than a billion page views a day. Half of it’s $150million revenue comes from an advertising deal with Microsoft. So much for thinking Zuckerberg was literally nuts for turning down the $1billion offer from Yahoo. Now everyone in the valley is looking at this kid with green dollar signs in their eyes!
No comments:
Post a Comment