So much of what gets said about Facebook these days revolves around what the company is worth, what Mark Zuckerberg is worth, what other Facebookers are worth; or, since the company’s hilariously bad initial public offering, the public conversation has been more focused on how much all of the aforementioned parties have lost thanks to Nasdaq, Facebook shares going belly-up, and general lack of confidence from advertisers.
But what about you, dear Facebooker? When was the last time somebody checked on the value of you, without whom Facebook would have zero Zuckerbucks in the bank?
In 2007, the year of your peak worth to Facebook, Pluggio calculates that each Facebook user was worth $152. Since then, each Facebook user’s value has diminished, bottoming out to a measly $17 as of May 2012.
$17? You could barely pay to go see The Dark Night Rises next month with $17.
Assuming that there’s any validity to Pluggio’s valuation of Facebook users, there’s an interesting corollary happening with the site and its relationship with users since 2007. The thing is, an analysis last month by privacy firm Abine showed that 2007 was the last time Facebook made an update to its privacy policy that didn’t automatically push user information into the public of the internet. Every update since 2009 has made more and more Facebook user information viewable to the general internet users of the world. Incidentally, following the infographic that Pluggio put together (see below), that timeline of diminished privacy correlates with Facebook’s billion-dollar growth occurring within the same time period.
Let’s put that into a formula. Since 2007, every change made to Facebook’s privacy policy resulted in less privacy for its users; and since 2007, the company has been raking in more billions of dollars each year (excepting the disastrous IPO that knocked down Facebook’s worth considerably). Anybody wanna take a stab at explaining that correlation using only three three letters?
Again, assuming that there is some legitimate value to Pluggio’s data, the diminished worth of Facebook users contrasted with the increasing worth of Facebook’s advertisers sort of points to where company’s interests and priorities are these days (here’s a hint: it’s not you, the user).
If you want to assess how much (or how little) Facebook’s users matter to the company and why they matter (or don’t matter) to the company, it’s simple: follow the money. Do that and you have a fairly plausible explanation for the devaluation of the Facebook user: you simply got bumped aside for advertisers because their pockets are deeper than yours, and Facebook is a very expensive date these days.
This little creation took 36 Game of Thrones books and over a week to create. The artist is “Red” Hong Yi, a Malaysian artist and achetect, and she really knows how to make a good pun. She says she used Game of Thrones for this piece because it was the thickest book she could find. That makes since — and that’s why i choose to watch the HBO version.
What inspired me?
I was in the States last month for the EG Conference and wanted to do a portrait of an iconic American…I decided on Mark Zuckerberg and I thought I’d use BOOKS for his portrait, to play around with the words, ‘face book’! LOL. was that PUNNY or what?!
ps: I used 36 Game of Thrones books because they were the thickest I could find. And by slicing off just the sides, the books can still be read…no words were cut off, I made sure of that. I am also giving them away to friends, so each book that is given away is personalised and unique.
As you can see from this diagram, the shading is created by varying levels in the depth of the cut. the further she cuts into the edge of the book, the darker that area becomes. She combines this technique with the number of pages she cuts in each pass to create varying levels of light and dark. Pretty cool.
And the impressive part is the books are still functional. The cuts are not deep enough to cut off any words, so they can still be read.
The creativity of some artists blows my mind; there are people who were simply built to make things, and some of them take a picture in their mind and turn it into something tangible so well that it makes one wonder why you don’t see their work featured more in the media.
Hong Yi–who goes by the name “Red”–is an example of one of those artists. Not only does she create incredible designs, she executes them in original ways that leaves other artists shaking their heads and saying, “Why the hell didn’t I think of that?” She has famously used coffee stains for her work in the past, creating a huge tablecloth-portrait using only a coffee cup. It reportedly took over 12 hours to complete, and the amount of painstaking work it would take to create such a piece boggles my mind. I just don’t have the patience for something like that. Not only was it tedious work, Yi had to do the entire thing on a flat surface to keep the coffee from dripping down the tablecloth, so she had to constantly be aware of how altered the perspective was. Brilliant.
She also did an amazing piece of basketball star Yao Ming using only red paint and, you guessed it, a basketball.
While her work is undeniably awesome, painting is one thing. Carving a certain amount of pages out of a bunch of books to form one big picture, however, is another.
That’s exactly what Yi did recently, using several “Game Of Thrones” books because of their extreme thickness. I wish she’d post a video showing a little bit more of her process, such as how she mapped out where to cut the pages, because I’m very curious to know how she did it. But I suppose if she did that, everyone would be biting her style.
The subject of her portrait was Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO and recent newlywed, and as she works you can’t see much of what the final picture will look like. In fact, up close it looks like a bunch of random defiled books. But when you step back, the picture emerges, and it’s pretty damn cool.
Yi says the inspiration behind the portrait was simple:
“I was in the States last month and wanted to do a portrait of an iconic American…I decided on Mark Zuckerberg and I thought I’d use BOOKS for his portrait, to play around with the words, ‘Facebook’.”
Groupon also experienced record low stock prices earlier this week. Their shares slipped below $10 just as the lockup period from their IPO expired. Shareholders seemed eager to dump their stake in the company as their quarterly performance almost always disappoints and the value of the shares has never even approximated the price most investors paid during the IPO. In fact, their market capitalization just sunk below the $6 billion Google offered them a couple years ago to buy them out.
Of course there’s more to Facebook’s bad news than just falling stock prices. The social media platform and its underwriters are facing a huge onslaught of lawsuits stemming from a number of issues surrounding their IPO. The first, and most prominent of those issues being a revised revenue forecast which conveniently only found its way into big investor’s hands despite being released almost ten days before the IPO.
Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, and the biggest underwriters in the IPO like Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, and Goldman Sachs all face lawsuits brought forth by investors in California, New York, Massachusetts, and the list seems to grow larger everyday. I dare say it’s trendy to sue Facebook these days.
Aside from lawsuits, Facebook’s IPO has also been the launching point for several investigations. Interested parties include Wall Street Regulators, the Securities and Exchange Commission and Congress. For various reasons, they are all taking a closer look at Facebook and their actions leading up to the IPO.
So Facebook shares are not doing good, and it sounds like the executives aren’t doing much better. While the networking site is just as popular as ever, we have to wonder if this IPO nonsense is just the first step into major decline for the company. We’ll keep you posted as new information comes in about Facebook shares, Wall Street trading, new IPO lawsuits and/or big bank scandals.
Mark Zuckerberg really loves his dog Beast, a Hungarian Sheepdog that he and his girlfriend wife Priscilla Chan got early last year. That is clear from the copious amount of photos available of Zuckerberg cuddling the pooch as well as the fact that they gave Beast his own Facebook page last March.
Beast currently has over 584,000 likes on Facebook and his Timeline takes us on a journey through refrigerator raids, toilet paper destruction, birthdays, and baths.
And now, we can add sheep herding to that list.
Earlier this morning, Beast posted a new photo album with the caption “Dad took me to herd sheep for the very first time!” Check out some of the photos from his experience below:
Last year, Beast’s dad (Zuck) decided that he was going to spend the year as a usual vegetarian who only eats meat that he kills himself. Shortly after that proclamation on sustainability, Zuckerberg posted on Facebook that he had just killed a pig and a goat.
It’s nice to see that he’s getting Beast involved in all of this.
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has announced it’s considering adding Mark Zuckerberg’s trademark grin to the list of endangered species, the agency said in a statement today. Public sightings and documentation of his grin in the wild have diminished significantly over the past several weeks, owing to citing the Facebook CEO’s increased strife and scrutiny following his company’s shabby initial public offering. The agency is concerned that the over-hunting for the once-flourishing Zuckerberg grins will endanger the future sustainability of the expression’s survival.*
The poll found that four out of five Facebook users have never been enticed to make a purchase of a product or service due to advertisements or user comments on the site. General Motors’ decision to pull its paid advertisements from Facebook last month seems to corroborate this finding. The automotive company said the reason it was pulling the ads was because, simply put, they didn’t believe the ads worked.
Facebook’s struggled to convince marketers that ads on the site actually do work, but what’s worse is that it’s going to be hard for Facebook to improve the efficiency of its advertising services if people are spending less time on the site, which appears to be the latest Thing to Worry About for Zuckerberg and Company. Another troubling finding to come from the survey: 34% of Facebookers said they were spending less time on the site compared to six months ago; only 20% of users said that they were spending more time there. Of the people who were spending less time on the site, the biggest reason they cited for visiting less was that the site is “boring, “not relevant,” or “not useful.”
It would appear that people kinda miss having that direct contact to other Facebook users and aren’t so keen on this voyeuristic hyper-social direction that Facebook has taken with the implementation of auto-posting apps for activities like social readers and Zynga games. Adding to Facebook’s waning relevancy is the fact that simply friending or following a person or page isn’t even a real guarantee that you’ll be a party to their updates.
While that still leaves just shy of 6 million users visiting the site at least as much as usual (if not more), if Facebook was having trouble encouraging 9 million people to engage those advertisements, the prospects of convincing a two-thirds of that number to do so isn’t exactly the most promising endeavor.
The company’s IPO hasn’t done much to win any favorability among users, either, as some people think that it seems to have broken the stock market as 46% said Facebook’s IPO has made them less favorable of investing in the stock market in general. Since the company’s IPO on May 18, shares have declined 29% and currently hover just below $27.00, $11 lower than the company’s IPO price of $38. It’s one thing to take down advertisers in Facebook’s slow, Crisco’ed slide down into Lonesome Town, but it’s another thing to drag down one of the biggest institutions of capitalism. Who knew such a thing were possible?
While the IPO hasn’t done Facebook any favors, the general pall that’s growing over the company is that it’s being viewed as a business now and less like a personal communication tool. Perhaps it’s become apparent to Facebook users that they are nothing more than a product or currency for the company and, better late than never, have realized they aren’t so comfortable with being commodified like that.
*This statement from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is actually completely made up.
Despite all the hype leading up to Facebook’s IPO, the circumstances abruptly changed after the company’s public debut. The stock was priced at $38 per share, which valued the company at $104 billion. At this rate, Facebook became the third largest public offering in the history of the United States, behind General Motors and Visa.
When the trading began on May 18, however, the problems started to surface. The company’s stock rose to $45 per share for a short time and then dropped back down to close at $38. 27, just a few cents above its opening price. Investors were disappointed and confused by the day’s events, but they quickly became angry as new details began to emerge.
Based on numerous reports, Facebook’s underwriters lowered their earnings estimates during the company’s public road show. As the story goes, Facebook apparently tipped them off that its second quarter revenues were not going to be as high as it had originally expected. These underwriters, namely Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, and Goldman Sachs, then only told a limited number of investors that they were cutting their estimates for Facebook’s Q2 and the full year.
Former Wall Street analyst Henry Blodget, who is now the Editor-in-Chief of Business Insider, calls this practice of verbally conveying estimates to selected investors “grossly unfair.” In a post on his site, he points out that the SEC rules should change to ensure that all investors have access to the underwriters’ estimates.
“This is an absurd and unfair practice. The estimates themselves are material information–the consensus of smart, well-trained analysts who have worked with the company’s management to develop realistic forecasts. Most investors don’t even know that these estimates exist, let alone that they’re whispered verbally to only a handful of big investors. All potential investors should have easy access to these estimates, as well as to any logic underlying them. The SEC needs to change the rules here.”
Facebook’s stock price dropped after this information was brought to light, and it continues to fall as more details come out. The blame has been pointed in several different directions including toward Morgan Stanley, Nasdaq, Facebook, and even toward David Ebersman, Facebook’s CFO.
Francis Gaskins, the President of IPODesktop, however, pins the blame on someone else. In a recent interview with us, he told us that Mark Zuckerberg is responsible for the company’s IPO disaster, calling the young CEO an “egomaniac.”
“If you want to play the blame game… Mark Zuckerberg himself bears the brunt of it,” he said.
Gaskins has been skeptical of Facebook’s IPO from the beginning. When Facebook filed its S-1 with the SEC earlier this year, he spoke with us and said that the company’s valuation was way too high based on the fact that its past earnings were flat.
“He [Mark Zuckerberg] was talking a year ago about a $100 billion market valuation, and his financial numbers were a lot lower than he thought,” said Gaskins. “[But] he was gonna have that evaluation come hell or high water.”
According to Gaskins, Zuckerberg allowed the company to put out projections that were too high in order to justify the $100 billion valuation. He believes this not only puts him at blame, but that it also raises questions about his leadership.
“Zuckerberg to me, instead of being a hero, he’s a control freak that doesn’t have any self-confidence,” said Gaskins. “If he had self-confidence, he wouldn’t have really made an effort to have 55 percent voting control… that means he’s never ever accountable.”
“After the disaster of an IPO, he left on a honeymoon – catch me if you can.”
“[If] they didn’t know what was happening in the second quarter,” he continued,” how can they possibly know what’s happening in the third quarter, or even the fourth quarter?”
While it is possible that Zuckerberg bears responsibility, there are other issues that could hold some of the fault as well. Analysts have credited various events, including Facebook issuing more shares of stock shortly before it went public and GM pulling its paid advertising from the platform, to the chaos that is continuing to surround the IPO. Another factor that’s been labeled as a red flag for Facebook is its mobile initiative.
Although trends show mobile usage is only going to increase, the company has not clearly defined how it will succeed in the area. The company openly admitted in its S-1 filing that its monetization efforts for mobile were yet to be proven:
“Growth in use of Facebook through our mobile products, where our ability to monetize is unproven, as a substitute for use on personal computers may negatively affect our revenue and financial results.”
While these issues and others were seemingly overlooked before May 18, it appears that they are now becoming realized. Now, Facebook is finding itself facing an angry Wall Street, a string of legal trouble, and a damaged reputation, some of which is illustrated in this video:
Unlike Blodget, Gaskins doesn’t believe that any rules need to change going forward. He calls what the underwriters did “normal business“ pointing out that they’re allowed to talk about the estimates. To the fact that the new research wasn’t published, he said, “There may be some harm but no foul.”
Incidentally, Congress has said that it plans to investigate the proceedings, but there has been no official word on what specific measures it may take.
Gaskins did say that he thinks underwriters will look more carefully at estimates in regards to future IPOs. He believes underwriters will be much more analytical to avoid a repeat of the Facebook fiasco.
There are reports predicting that Facebook will switch from Nasdaq to the NYSE, given its rocky start at its public debut. While it is understandable that Facebook would want a clean slate, Gaskins told us that the company “can’t wipe out history.”
These rumors and even those of Facebook building its own smartphone and planning to acquire Opera do not seem to be having a positive impact on the company’s stock price. At the close of business Tuesday, the stock price was $28.84, after dropping steadily all day.
“You can’t trust them anymore based on them missing estimates this close,” said Gaskins. “I think they’ll have a second quarter that won’t please investors, I think they’ll have a third quarter that won’t please investors, [and] I think the price will go down quite a bit.”
The newlyweds visited Italy for their Honeymoon, and according to sources they quickly adopted one particular aspect of the European culture – forgoing the tip.
According to the Telegraph, Zuckerberg and Chan went for a nice meal of sea bass ravioli and fried artichokes at a local Jewish restaurant in Rome. Per the report, the bill came to 32 Euros and that’s exactly what the Zuckerbergs paid – 32 Euros.
Apparently, the owner of the restaurant recognized Zuckerberg, who apparently enjoyed the meal:
“I asked him ‘how was it?’ and he said ‘very good’”, the owner said. “I had gone up to him and said ‘Are you …?’ and he said ‘Yes’.”
But not good enough for a tip, apparently.
Of course, we can’t knock Zuckerberg for going against what is customary. In most European countries, leaving a tip is considered extra and is not expected as it is in the States. Many countries in Europe impose a service charge that’s worked into the bill, and waiters there typically receive a higher compensation than the $2-$3 per hour rate common in the U.S.
Then again, some European establishments may expect a tip from American tourists as they know that it is customary in the culture. Travel guy Rick Steves explains that tipping in Italy isn’t expected, but it is definitely accepted for outstanding food or service:
In Italy you tip if you really like the place, the food and the service; if the waiter was very friendly for example. In US a waiter has a small salary, but just because he will have a lot of tips: tipping is necessary; in Italy no, the salary is good and the tip is something exceptional, so a guest can tip or not and normally only the 10/20 percent of guests tip. Giving a tip to the waiter or leaving it on the table it is up to you. Leaving it on the table is the standard
So, Zuckerberg technically wasn’t in the wrong with his lack of a tip, but when you’re worth $20 billion it definitely comes off as a bit cheap. Maybe he had just heard the latest on the dropping Facebook stock and decided he better start saving up.
Facebook stock wasn’t looking much better at the end of the day on Tuesday, closing at $28.84. This effectively puts the shares down 24 percent since its public debut on May 18th. However, despite the dip in price, the company is valued at $79 billion, which, of course, is still incredibly impressive.
For those who have been away from everything for a while, the Facebook IPO was one of the most highly-anticipated debuts in history. However, what should have been a celebration for CEO Mark Zuckerberg and crew quickly turned in a throbbing headache. In addition to technical problems that caused Nasdaq to delay trading, the company is also facing a few lawsuits which claim underwriters Morgan Stanley slashed forecasts and only told a select few about the alterations.
Facebook, of course, claims that these investigations are “without merit”.
If you’re worried about the financial future of Zuckerberg and company, I would strongly advice not getting too emotional over how they’re doing. According to ABC News, those who were granted stock options are “still doing better than most people”. Those who bought shares since the IPO, on the other hand, will just have to wait and see how things play out.
All hope is not lost: Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter believes the 12-month target price to be $44 per share.
The newest billionaire on the block owes a great deal to you, the Facebook member. If not for the hundreds of millions of people joining the Book of Face, there would be no multibillion dollar IPO. So the next time someone talks about Zuckerberg’s billions, take heart in knowing you had something to do with his success, provided you’re a member of Facebook.
Taking into account the successful IPO, and all of the financial rewards it brought to the service’s founder, an infographic concerning things smaller than Mark Zuckerberg and his billions of dollars is awfully revealing. The image was created by MBAOnline, via UltraLinx, and while it uses the $19 billion mark as its high point–currently, Zuckerberg’s worth has decreased by by a little over $3 billion to its current $15.9 billion mark–its findings are still relevant.
Just substitute $16 billion for $19 billion. Nitpicking, I know:
What stands out to you? For me, it’s the fact that, even with the corrected $16 billion being used, Zuckerberg’s worth is almost more than all of the players’ salaries from the NFL, the NBA, MLB, (totaling almost $8 billion by MBAOnline’s numbers) and the revenue generated by the porn industry ($10 billion) combined. If you use the $19 billion mark, Zuckerberg’s worth exceeds these industries.
Let’s stop and think about this for a second. Mark Zuckerberg’s worth, in light of the Facebook IPO, is more than the entire porn industry generates. Granted, I’m a little dubious on MBAOnline’s $10 billion mark for porn, and after a little legwork, there’s reason for my position.
It should be noted the statistics in the report are five-to-six years old, so there could have been a decrease in the amount of revenue generated, but a 2011 porn industry infographic appearing on TheSmokingJacket.com still has the adult industry generating $13 billion worth of revenue. Of course, what’s $3 billion among friends? The point of MBAOnline’s infographic is not to pick nits about which industry made what. It’s to demonstrate just how big Zuckerberg has grown, thanks to a huge IPO.
The final segment of the infographic about Zuckerberg being worth more at 28 years old than Bill Gates was at the same age is a fine attempt at humor, but I’m sure Gates sleeps just fine on a bed made from his $61 billion net worth.
When Facebook launched it’s IPO on Friday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg contributed 30.2 million of his own shares in the company to the sale. Those shares, as it turns out, sold for $37.58 each, netting Zuckerberg a cool $1.1 billion dollars.
Unfortunately, however, Zuckerberg doesn’t get to do a Scrooge McDuck impression and go swimming in all that money. According to the LA Times, the bulk of that money will go to filling Uncle Sam’s money bin in the form of taxes. Zuckerberg, however, still has another 503.6 million shares of the company, meaning that he’s still worth billions of dollars
Just how many billions of dollars those shares are worth, though, has fluctuated wildly over the past few days. Shortly after opening on Friday, Facebook’s stock price briefly shot up to $42 per share, a significant jump over its $38 per share IPO price. Since then, however, the stock has mostly been on a downward slide, and is currently trading at $31.88 per share (though that’s 2.84% higher than its opening price this morning).
At the current price, Zuckerberg’s remaining shares are worth a little over $16 billion. Facebook’s market cap, meanwhile, is sitting at $68.14 billion. Facebook’s IPO has performed poorly thus far to say the least, and with the controversy brewing surrounding Morgan Stanley’s revised revenue report, it may be a long while before the stock shows much gain.
It’s no secret now that Mark Zuckerberg got married on Saturday after a lackluster day on Wall Street. Like the responsible Facebook CEO that he is, he updated his Facebook Timeline to indicate that he had indeed been married. When we covered the marriage on Sunday, the announcement was sitting around 700,000 likes. Since then, a lot more people have liked it.
The original post now has over 1.2 million likes. The comments thread has also reached 770. It’s definitely no world record breaker (which currently sits at over 1 million comments), but it shows that people obviously care about the man behind Facebook.
The real meat of this story is obviously the comments on the post. I wouldn’t really be able to call myself a journalist if I didn’t sift through all 770 comments, most of them just saying “congrats,” to find the really endearing, or funny, ones.
This is the way real men celebrate success, making a commitment to someone you love. This proves that Mark Zuckerberg for all of his creativity and above the clouds thinking, he is a human being in touch with what matters in life. The guy has achieved monumental success and with an air of humility celebrates with those who he collaborated with at his company, his family and then marries his love. This is frankly model behavior for a Corporate Leader in America, if you ask me. I do not know how you do not root for this guy and consider yourself someone who respects America and what this country is all about. As I near middle age, maybe the Facebook crowd is teaching me that the world just might have a better, smarter and more determined generation to extend the American experience. Call me romantic but I am impressed and this is an undertone of humanity that maybe won’t be the story in the Financial News Media.
The most important journey of your life has arrived! I’m really looking forward to seeing how many good things you will yet bring to our world to make it a better place for all of humanity. I would like to send you one of my works as a wedding gift. If you like one of my works on my FB wall then I’ll make it as on original and send it to you an your beautiful bride.
There are things that deserve a white shirt and tie. An IPO is not one of them. Congrats =)
I now have something in common with Mark Zuckerberg: we share the same wedding anniversary. Congratulations!
Congrats Mark but next time you upload a photo you didn’t take you should really let everyone know who took it!
You were greedy during the stock IPO and hurt your followers. I’ve lost confidence in you and the FB brand. You’re no better than Jamie Dimon and his Wall Street friends.
That last one came out of left field, but is probably the only negative comment in the entire batch. There was one more that was a call back to the prenup stories over the weekend – the music video for Kanye West’s Gold Digger. The original poster of the video was quick to point out that he was “jk.”
Now if only we can get the million plus people here to invest in Facebook. That might help the share price that is now sitting around $31.
Facebook has been on a rampage as of late, attempting to squash any and all social networking websites that uses either “face” or “book” in its title. For example, Teachbook, a website oriented towards educations, and Shagbook, a site dedicated to helping adults find dates, have been in the company’s crosshairs for a while now, though, as of this writing, both are still alive and well on the web. With this latest court ruling, Facebook’s quest to pummel its competitors hits another roadblock.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White ruled against Facebook’s desire to shut down the Norwegian website Faceporn, a company that bills itself as “the number one socializing porn and sex network”. According to Judge White, Faceporn isn’t attempting to lure Facebook users away from the site, effectively derailing Mark Zuckerberg and company’s mission to stop other companies from profiting off of their brand.
On an interesting note, the court documents showed that Facebook owns ten trademarks, with another seventeen waiting in the wings. So if you’re thinking about incorporating the word “wall” into your latest business venture, you might want to think twice. The company owns the trademark for that, as well.
Facebook has yet to comment on the ruling. Given that they could still take their case to Norway, I doubt you’ll hear them chime in on the lawsuit anytime soon.
Facebook CEO and newlywed Mark Zuckerberg will take a $1 salary in 2013, and likewise forgo cash and stock bonuses, as well the use of Facebook services, including aircraft and financial and estate planning for his personal use – all to save on taxes.
Other notable tech execs who receive a $1 salary include Apple’s late Steve Jobs, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, HP’s Meg Whitman, and Google leaders Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt. Executives do this sort of thing to fall into different tax brackets. Zuckerberg’s salary in 2012 is $600,000, up from $500,000 in 2011, which has a payroll tax of 35%. Though, with a $1 salary and stock options instead, he only pays a capital gains tax, which is 15% at present.
There’s a common belief that the wealthy sometimes live off interest, but in Zuckerberg’s case, it would be better to live off debt and municipal bonds. He could get a home equity line of credit, which isn’t taxable, and live off of that, while his stocks grow. And interest on said equity can offset any separate income.
There’s been a lot of speculation concerning why Facebook’s stock hasn’t skyrocketed since the Friday IPO. NASDAQ reporting errors, poor ad monetization, hoodies, weddings, etc., were all mentioned. When it comes down to it, it would appear that Facebook set the initial price of the stock too high. Realistically, a company with over 900 million “customers” isn’t exactly going anywhere anytime soon. It will be interesting to see how Facebook stock does after posting its earnings report in the coming months. For extensive coverage on Facebook’s IPO, go here.
Some say the shares were plainly too expensive, at $38 a pop, and with the technical issues of NASDAQ, trading should’ve been delayed. Dave Rovelli, managing director of US equity trading at Canaccord Genuity in New York, states, “They shouldn’t have opened until 1 o’clock (Friday), until they fixed the glitch.” Rovelli adds, “All the buy-side institutions are shorting it. You can get a borrow on it and everyone’s leaning all over it. There’s no bottom – The next catalyst is going to be earnings, which is three months away. So there’s no reason to jump in here. You’re catching a falling knife.”
As the smoke clears surrounding the IPO event, there’s really no telling what will happen with Facebook’s stock, as months will pass before the company submits a quarterly earnings report. Until then, investors will be more realistically looking at the company. Phil Silverman, managing partner at Kingsview Capital in New York, states, “Unless you really want it in your portfolio I would wait for stability – It was a total fiasco on Friday. I was really surprised it went down. It just showed you that at this point there’s time to buy.” Still, Facebook does have 901 million users, and if it sorts out a better way of running ads, especially for Facebook mobile, there is nothing barring the social network from making huge gains.
After last Friday’s debut of the Facebook IPO, Mark Zuckerberg went and got married on Saturday. Now Zuckerberg and his longtime girlfriend, Priscilla Chan, are presumably living in marital bliss. Donald Trump, perhaps being able to see the future, advised Zuckerberg to have Chan sign a prenuptial agreement last week before anybody even knew the marriage was happening. Due to a California law, a prenup may not even be required.
When the news broke of the marriage last weekend, everybody started talking about a prenup. It makes sense, right? In case the two ever split up, Chan could get a sizable chunk of Zuckerberg’s $17 billion. Signing a prenup would set how much she could get out of him if a divorce were ever to occur. Zuckerberg may have planned all of this ahead and married Chan after the IPO to take advantage of community property laws.
The New York Times reports that California is one of the few states that has such a law on the books. It states that whatever was the property of a person before a marriage remains in their possession even after a divorce. Essentially, the $17 billion that Zuckerberg earned on Friday will remain his.
Of course, community property laws change once you do get married. Starting yesterday, whatever Zuckerberg or Chan earn will be owned by both of them as per the law. During a divorce, those possessions would be split up between the two parties.
Speaking to the New York Times, Chris Donelly, head of the family law department at Leland, Parachini, Steinberg, Matzger & Melnick in San Francisco, said that things get much more complicated though when it comes to value growth. If the Facebook stock ever starts to become really valuable, Zuckerberg’s current value will increase alongside his shares. That increased value happened after the marriage, but the shares were there before the marriage. What happens then?
Donelly says that the growth of the shares may go to the community. While it’s a big gray area, he says that Chan would be entitled to something in divorce proceedings. She wouldn’t be able to gain access to any shares since they belong to Zuckerberg as they were his before the marriage, but she would be entitled to something.
This is all speculation at the moment. The Zuckerbergs are remaining tight lipped on whether or not they signed a prenuptial agreement. Even with California’s community property law, a prenup would still be a good idea. It’s obvious that both Zuckerbergs, one the head of Facebook and the other a doctor, will be making quite a bit of money in their lifetime. During their marriage, that money belongs to both of them. The prenup would help settle who owns what before it turned into something nasty if a divorce were to take place.
Regardless, a prenup shouldn’t be the most pressing matter on the newlywed couple’s minds. They have much bigger issues to contend with, like getting Facebook shares above $34. It seems that people still want to hear details on a prenup, however, so do you think they signed one? It would be interesting to see the details of any potential prenup between the two, that’s for sure.
Not much is known about the billionaire bride of Mark Zuckerberg. But there is one place you can always find information on the people you are stalking *cough*, interested in – Facebook. Here are the pertinent facts of the recent bride.
Lives in Palo Alto. Married to Mark Zuckerberg. Duh.
Priscilla graduated from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) with a degree in medicine.
She was in a relationship with Mark Zuckerberg on March 20, 2011.
She worked at The Harker School teaching 4th and 5th grade science.
Started grad school in 2008 at UCSF.
Graduated from Harvard in 2007 with a major in Biology
Worked at Fase as a Director/Mentor. A non-profit for “Women and the Environment” in Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Went to Quincy High school in Massachusetts.
Born in Braintree, Massachusetts.
She seems like a stand up gal, graduated from Harvard and UCSF, taught science, and even volunteered in Haiti for a time. She has the credentials, and seems very trustworthy. Maybe Zuckerberg didn’t need to listen to Donald Trump when he told him to get a pre-nup.
Since not much is really known about the woman, people are making their own assumptions. They really seem to think she is a gold digger, even though they met in Harvard, long before Zuckerberg had his billions.
The aforementioned earnings guidance is a company’s forecast of how good business will be in the future. These sorts of forecasts directly affect trading, as they afford buyers the most current information. Facebook never officially submitted an earnings guidance, though Blodget has noticed a couple of mentions to where the company might’ve not only submitted, but also changed their forecast with a reduced guidance during their road show, something that would indicate a drastic change in business. This is something investors should’ve been made aware of. Though, this is all speculative.
An earnings guidance is highly material information, something that any investor should remain clear on. It was never officially stated if Facebook even submitted a guidance in the first place, though now some outlets are reporting an actual reduced guidance. Reuters had recently posted: Facebook also altered its guidance for research earnings last week, during the road show, a rare and disruptive move. Though, who knows? It seems unlikely that Facebook would be so bold to hide this sort of information on the eve of such a sensational IPO. The interent harbors all kinds of disinformation. Perhaps today investors will get a better idea of how Facebook stock might do, if NASDAQ is able to report correctly.
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch congratulated Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook’s IPO, and urged him to continue working. Murdoch, who in the past lamented a lack of civility on Twitter, still takes to the platform to project his varied musings. Here he wishes Zuckerberg happiness:
Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan married this weekend. It was a lovely wedding and we all wish him the best. There are some people, however, who think that Zuckerberg should start planning ahead for a potential divorce.
Donald Trump, speaking to CNBC last Tuesday, questioned whether or not the Facebook founder had set up a prenuptial agreement yet. This was before the marriage was even announced because the whole thing was still up in the air until Saturday. Trump said that the IPO was going to make Zuckerberg worth $19 billion and that Chan could sue him for half of that in any potential divorce proceedings. Here’s his take on the matter:
“So he’s gonna be worth like $18, $19 billion, you’re telling me he’s got a girlfriend … does he get a prenuptial agreement? They get married, and then for some reason over the next couple of years they get divorced and then she sues him for $10 billion and she hits the jackpot … In New York, she would get a big chunk of what he has.”
Going even further, Trump offered his own assistance in the writing of any prenuptial agreement. He called himself an expert on the subject. He should be after being married three times with two divorces that were handled by prenuptial agreements. He even makes reference to a friend who gives $80 million to every divorced wife.
Here’s the interview where Trump offers his advice to the young billionaire. Do you think it’s too early to begin talking about prenuptial agreements? I certainly think so, but a man like Trump has a right to be concerned over ex-wives trying to take their husband’s fortune. The question now is whether or not Zuckerberg has the same feelings towards his wife.
As always, the users of Twitter have their own feelings on the matter:
Mark Zuckerberg must be on top of the world right now. Facebook went public on Friday to the tune of $42 a share, even though it settled to $38 after a not so hot day.Regardless, it’s still a reason to celebrate. Zuckerberg wasn’t going to let the good times stop at the IPO though as the founder of Facebook also got married this weekend.
Zuckerberg updated his Facebook Timeline to show a picture of himself with long-time girlfriend, and now bride, Priscilla Chan. The picture of the newly wed couple has already attracted over 700,00 likes and over 600 comments. While it doesn’t break any records, it shows that the Facebook community is super excited for Zuckerberg. All the comments are full of good will and congratulations instead of the jokes that I was kind of expecting.
According to Daily Finance, the wedding ceremony was set to friends only. It took place at Zuckerberg’s home in Palo Alto surrounded by only 100 friends and family. The ring given to Chan was adorned with a “very simple ruby.” Here I was hoping that he was going to give her a ring with a sapphire shaped in the Facebook logo.
The funny thing is that most who attended the wedding were completely caught off guard. It would appear that the couple was waiting for Chan to graduate medical school so the date of the marriage was always in flux. It appears that the guests were invited under the pretense of a party, but found out it was a wedding after they arrived.
Like any good relationship, the marriage has become Facebook official. Both Zuckerberg and Chan have updated their profiles to show that they tied the knot.
We here at WebProNews wish the newlywed couple the best of luck in the coming years. Here’s hoping we will soon be able to report on some little Zuckerbergs running around the Facebook HQ causing all kinds of chaos.
Former Wall Street analyst 
Francis Gaskins, the President of 
