Comments on: Why Facebook may never have to go public at all

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 10:38:47 +0000

In what universe would they pass up the liquidity of public markets? Only public markets would allow them to recognize billions of dollars in stock sales across the multitude of current owners. SecondMarket and private placements have not been able to provide that kind of liquidity nor would they.

Furthermore, publicly traded stock is a far more valuable currency with which to buy things than privately traded stock.

While I get that Mark Z. probably would be content to stay private and not have a bank account with $20 billion in it, I don’t believe the majority of his investors would. And for that matter, the people who bought all the stock in the offerings through GS, SecondMarket, etc. all want an IPO, not some hope that others are coming in privately.

Clearly your headline is click/linkbait, but the notion is really silly.

By: Stephanos Ballmerfeld

Stephanos Ballmerfeld — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 09:25:28 +0000

Everybody goes public!
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com

By: Ric

Ric — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 20:01:32 +0000

One can only hope something like this gets passed as the US is usually hell bent on finding new ways to restrictively regulate business into moving offshore or maximizing its overseas investment.

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 17:44:10 +0000

Wow – smooth jazz AND acerbic wit.

By: KenG

KenG — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 17:22:27 +0000

All that bill would do (in the completely unlikely event it ever gets passed) is delay the IPO. A company that is worth as much as current investors and speculators think it’s worth needs more liquidity to keep employees and shareholders happy. Also, at some point, the VCs and their LPs will want to sell their shares, and then there will be way more than 1000 non-employee shareholders.

But maybe a new company will come along and reduce the value of Facebook, and Microsoft will be able to buy it and combine it with Skype and their other non-software assets in a futile Intel-like attempt to diversify. And then an IPO won’t be necessary.