Today, social networking giant Facebook made it’s initial public offering (IPO) valued at $16 billion. In doing so, Mark Zuckerberg became the 29th richest person in the entire world and the 16th richest American according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index which gives daily updates to the worlds richest people.
Facebook sold 421.2 million shares during its IPO for $38 each. At that price, the 503.6 million shares and options Zuckerberg owns are valued at $19.1 billion, making him wealthier than Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. “Zuckerberg doesn’t think about his wealth,” David Kirkpatrick, author of “The Facebook Effect,” said in an interview. “This is a huge success for everybody. There’s no way it can be seen otherwise.”
Zuckerberg sold 30.2 million shares for $1.15 billion during the offering. Most of the proceeds will be used to pay the taxes associated with exercising 60 million stock options. Everyone saw how fast Myspace failed, so it will be very interesting to see how long it will be able to keep its momentum. With 900 million users, and new things popping up all the time, the exodus could begin at any time. So it is up to Zuckerberg to keep the company at the leading edge of technology
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Ed Hunsinger
@edrabbit Why is Facebook going public?They couldn’t figure out the privacy settings either.