Facebook Goes Public

Facebook Inc. today filed for an initial public offering (IPO) that puts the value of the social networking site around $75 to $100 billion. You read right. Billion.

In a letter to potential shareholders, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he plans to continue focusing on building products, rather than optimizing for revenue growth. “We don’t build services to make money; we make money to build better services,” he said.” These days I think more and more people want to use services from companies that believe in something beyond simply maximizing profits.”

What does this all mean? It means that now that Facebook will be a publicly traded company, they will be held to rules and accountability. Privacy issues and policies will be known. This has been a hot issue with consumers lately. Facebook will also have to reveal how many ads they sell and to who. Zuckerberg himself said just a few years ago that he was in no hurry to take his company, born in a college dorm room, public.

With the IPO, it has been estimated that Zuckerberg’s net worth will be in the neighborhood of $28 billion- stock worth.