The Facebook Millionaires
With the upcoming Facebook IPO, there is much speculation as to the potential creation of thousands of millionaires. Facebook is expected to debut on the market at $100 billion dollars in 2012, which makes me wonder what other numbers are at play that we aren’t seeing.
How much revenue does Facebook need to account for executive compensation and employee wages? Facebook had around 700 employees in 2008, and currently employs over 3,000. Not all employees will get equal shares either, and one downside to going public is that all executives will need to include the amount of shares owned in quarterly reports. There may be dissent among the company once this information is released, and only time will tell if a restructuring of the company is necessary. Current investors will have a vested interest in making sure everything goes smoothly, and may be the deciding factor in the future of the company.
This makes me wonder how our experience as end users will change. Can we expect to see more invasive advertisements because it’s what stockholders want? Will our status updates and fan-page comments be considered fair game when we mention specific products? I also wonder what this means for the on-going privacy issues held against Facebook. How much of a say will the stockholders have in the way our data is used?
Facebook’s IPO is expected to be the biggest tech IPO ever – Google debuted at $1.9 billion as a comparison. I plan to invest, but I’ll see how I feel once next April comes around. A lot also depends on how Facebook offers the shares – they may opt for an auction as Google did in 2004. Pricing most likely won’t be known until the night before it goes public, but definitely keep an eye on this story. If you have a lot of money to invest, this may be something for you to consider. This could be the ground floor of something major, and though there is always the possibility of Facebook becoming the next Myspace, I think it will be a while before Facebook is replaced.
