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Facebook's biggest winners look to rich payday

When Facebook goes public in a deal that could value the company at $100 billion, small fortunes will be made.

Here are some of the individuals and firms that stand to make the most from Facebook's IPO.

Mark Zuckerberg: He can now officially change his surname to Zuckerbucks. With his 28.2 percent ownership in Facebook, the paper wealth of Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg now serves as an eternal rejoinder to the legion of armchair critics--and where are they now?--who thought that the then-22-year-old was bull goose loony for rejecting Yahoo's $1 billion buyout offer in 2006. … Read more

Facebook's days of hypergrowth may be over

"We have posted the phrase 'this journey is 1% finished' across many of our office walls, to remind employees that we believe that we have only begun fulfilling our mission to make the world more open and connected." Mark Zuckerberg wrote this in his letter in Facebook's IPO registration paperwork.

It's in character for the CEO: An odd mix of arrogant and humble.

But realistic? To think that Facebook is a fledgling is pushing it. Even if it is true that, barring catastrophe, Facebook should still be able to grow nicely for quite a while.

Facebook … Read more

Facebook's IPO by the numbers: You like?

Facebook has finally updated its status. Financially, that is.

The social-networking giant's initial public offering document reveals a wealth of detail about its business operations previously known only to the likes of co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, COO Sheryl Sandberg and the company's legion of private investors. So let's dive in and see what they tell us about how the secretive giant does what it does.

That billion-dollar profit One thing is immediately clear: Facebook makes a ton of money. And it's making it fast.

In 2011, the company reported net income of a clean billion dollars on … Read more

Facebook: Mobile could be our worst enemy

Buried in Facebook's filing for its much-ballyhooed initial public offering is the sort of contradiction that might sink a lesser company: The more that people use Facebook's mobile offerings, the worse the company's bottom line becomes.

That's because Facebook's mobile offerings don't feature display ads. Or as Texas Gov. Rick Perry was wont to say on another occasion, oops.

It's a pretty big oops.

To be fair, Facebook can pat itself on the back for turning out a product that's wildly popular with users. More than 425 million people were using Facebook … Read more

Facebook faces many threats, but none more than Google

Facebook is painting itself as the David to Google's Goliath.

It's hard to imagine a company potentially valued at $100 billion playing the underdog role, but Facebook does just that in listing out a myriad potential risks that include a heavy dependence on social-gaming company Zynga, potential hackers, and possible shutdown by foreign countries. Now, many of these risks are boilerplate lines added for the sake of the S-1 prospectus. But they do provide hints to potential troubles down the road.

The company's biggest threat comes from Google, which has made no secret of its desire to … Read more

Facebook files to go public, plans to raise $5B

Facebook took a formal step toward joining the ranks of other public technology giants after filing for its eagerly anticipated initial public offering.

The company filed an S-1 form with the Securities and Exchange Commission today, officially declaring its intent to go public. Facebook plans to raise $5 billion through the IPO, according to the filing. The last major tech IPO was Google's, which raised $1.9 billion.

The S-1 pulls back the curtain on Facebook's business, providing investors with a formal glimpse into its financials. Last year, it saw revenue double to $3.7 billion, while its … Read more

Zuckerberg-Page: Behold the next tech CEO duel

It has become increasingly clear that Steve Jobs and Bill Gates had a bit of a complicated relationship. The two tech luminaries were fierce competitors, cooperated from time to time and had a healthy respect for each other over time (jabs aside of course).

Jobs and Gates were like two boxers. The difference was that they traded jabs in computing. One was elegant liberal arts type and the other was an engineering wonk. When Jobs passed away late last year one of the questions instantly revolved around his replacement. Who would be the next Jobs? Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos came … Read more

Rumor Has It, Ep. 18: No, Samsung, we don't need a bigger Galaxy Tab (podcast)

To celebrate Mark Zuckerberg maybe possibly loosening his death grip on Facebook, Karyne and I give you a little Econ 101 lesson.

Kidding! No we don't. All I learned in Econ 101 was that there is apparently no such thing as a free lunch (then what was that pizza I just found abandoned in the kitchen and ate, hmm?) and that the more scarce a thing is, the more money it will cost.

But scarcity might explain why unvested stocks of Facebook have been some of the highest valued and most traded on SecondMarket--a market to trade stocks in … Read more

Facebook IPO may be downsized to $5 billion

Facebook's initial public offering may raise $5 billion, half of what was previously estimated, according to a new report on International Financing Review. Facebook is expected to file papers to go public as early as tomorrow.

A $5 billion IPO would still put Facebook at the top of the stats box on money raised in tech IPOs. Google raised $1.9 billion in 2004. More recently, Zynga raised $1 billion, and Groupon raised $700 million. Social network LinkedIn raised $353 million.

Also still unknown: how much of the company will be offered. Early stories pegged that figure at 10 … Read more