![Facebook is really good at a lot of things, challenged by many more and ultimately — or at least people are talking along these lines — a big opportunity for America. This week, the navel-gazing technology pundits and head-scratching business analysts are starting to put together their forecasts for the economic impact of Facebook’s impending initial public offering, a $5 billion affair that will flood Silicon Valley later this spring with new capital, paying back the social network’s investors who will most certainly turn around to invest in more start-ups. Last week, as everyone else breathlessly awaited the filing of the Facebook IPO papers, a pair of Atlantic editors posted a couple of different ideas about what this might mean. We gleaned two nouns from Derek Thompson’s post: jobs and profits. (Or rather: profits and jobs.) And Rebecca J. Rosen got us thinking about one thing: politics. (It’s an election year after all!)
This is all to say, the country is teeing up a pretty big opportunity for accelerating the economic turnaround. With all of that Facebook money, a lot of new companies will be built, some will be bought, some sold and many many more people will get rich, as Mark Zuckerberg would say, by making stuff. If you couldn’t tell from the Super Bowl spectacle on Sunday night America is back. For your convenience, we’ve made an easy-to-read scorecard of the investors with the biggest war chests.
Mark Zuckerberg
We don’t know much about Zuckerberg’s portfolio outside of the $100 million he gave to the Newark Public School system (via Oprah). But since he’ll be the biggest winner on IPO day, we imagine he might have a little bit more philanthropy up his sleeve. Zuck’s ”553.8 million shares [are] worth $28.4 billion, based on a company valuation of $100 billion, or $53 per share,” explains ReadWriteWeb’s Dave Copeland. That amount of money could buy a lot of kids an education.
Peter Thiel
Speaking of education, Peter Thiel is a famous critic of the American higher education system, mostly for economic reasons. He’s right about a few things. College is extraordinarily expensive adventure. Take Harvard dropout Mark Zuckerberg, for instance. If he’d paid full tuition, room and board (plus books and beer!), his brain would be worth north of a quarter million dollars upon graduation — maybe half a million based on how much beer he drank. Thiel, an outspoken libertarian, has been touting Zuck’s dropping out as an example of how buying a fancy college degree and being successful are not necessarily synonymous. Quoting Copeland again, “Peter Thiel, who invested $500,000 in Facebook in 2004, has 44.7 million shares that could be worth $2 billion.” So for the price of a boozy version of a Zuckerberg’s hypothetical Harvard degree, Thiel could fund, well, 4,000 more Harvard degrees. Or invest in a ton of young talent.
Don Graham
Mark Zuckerberg’s number one bro and the owner of the Washington Post Company scored some Facebook shares early on after one of Zuck’s friends in Kirkland House made a very serendipitous introduction. The Atlantic Wire’s own Dino Grandioni explained last week, “As for Graham, known buddy of Zuckerberg, he told Forbes’ Jeff Bercovici in a statement that he plans to donate his entire Facebook windfall of likely $46 million to charity. “I won’t sell any Facebook shares as long as I’m on the board,” he writes. “When I leave, all my Facebook shares will be donated to two or three D.C. education-related charities I’ve supported over the years.” We’re starting to notice a trend here…
Accel Partners
Accel Partners is the venture capital firm basically built its now global venture capital business based on an early, smart investment into Facebook. Says Copeland, “Accel Partners, which owns 201.4 million shares, could see a thousand-fold return on its initial investment.” That’s pretty good!
Microsoft
People love to compare The Mark Zuckerberg Fable to The Bill Gates Story. Both went to Harvard; neither really fit in; but both of them were very smart and good at computers, a talent that inevitable helped both men earn a fortune. We all know that Gates left Harvard and eventually created Microsoft, that company that makes Windows. Pointing to the Microsoft press release and a BusinessWeek article, Wikipedia says, “On October 24, 2007, Microsoft announced that it had purchased a 1.6% share of Facebook for $240 million, giving Facebook a total implied value of around $15 billion. Microsoft’s purchase included rights to place international ads on Facebook.” So now you know.
Mr. Zuckerberg
The Westchester, New York-based dentist that is Mark Zuckerberg’s father also made some money. Grandioni again, “There’s Mark Zuckerberg’s dad, who gave a little bit initial capital off his dentist’s salary to get his son’s project off the ground. He gets $2 million.” We don’t know how he’ll spend it, but we hope he’ll buy his son a really sweet birthday present this year. Or maybe they can go to a Yankees game on Father’s Day or something.](http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyzfqzSDrw1qzsg98o1_500.jpg)
Facebook is really good at a lot of things, challenged by many more and ultimately — or at least people are talking along these lines — a big opportunity for America. This week, the navel-gazing technology pundits and head-scratching business analysts are starting to put together their forecasts for the economic impact of Facebook’s impending initial public offering, a $5 billion affair that will flood Silicon Valley later this spring with new capital, paying back the social network’s investors who will most certainly turn around to invest in more start-ups. Last week, as everyone else breathlessly awaited the filing of the Facebook IPO papers, a pair of Atlantic editors posted a couple of different ideas about what this might mean. We gleaned two nouns from Derek Thompson’s post: jobs and profits. (Or rather: profits and jobs.) And Rebecca J. Rosen got us thinking about one thing: politics. (It’s an election year after all!)
This is all to say, the country is teeing up a pretty big opportunity for accelerating the economic turnaround. With all of that Facebook money, a lot of new companies will be built, some will be bought, some sold and many many more people will get rich, as Mark Zuckerberg would say, by making stuff. If you couldn’t tell from the Super Bowl spectacle on Sunday night America is back. For your convenience, we’ve made an easy-to-read scorecard of the investors with the biggest war chests.
Mark Zuckerberg
We don’t know much about Zuckerberg’s portfolio outside of the $100 million he gave to the Newark Public School system (via Oprah). But since he’ll be the biggest winner on IPO day, we imagine he might have a little bit more philanthropy up his sleeve. Zuck’s ”553.8 million shares [are] worth $28.4 billion, based on a company valuation of $100 billion, or $53 per share,” explains ReadWriteWeb’s Dave Copeland. That amount of money could buy a lot of kids an education.
Peter Thiel
Speaking of education, Peter Thiel is a famous critic of the American higher education system, mostly for economic reasons. He’s right about a few things. College is extraordinarily expensive adventure. Take Harvard dropout Mark Zuckerberg, for instance. If he’d paid full tuition, room and board (plus books and beer!), his brain would be worth north of a quarter million dollars upon graduation — maybe half a million based on how much beer he drank. Thiel, an outspoken libertarian, has been touting Zuck’s dropping out as an example of how buying a fancy college degree and being successful are not necessarily synonymous. Quoting Copeland again, “Peter Thiel, who invested $500,000 in Facebook in 2004, has 44.7 million shares that could be worth $2 billion.” So for the price of a boozy version of a Zuckerberg’s hypothetical Harvard degree, Thiel could fund, well, 4,000 more Harvard degrees. Or invest in a ton of young talent.
Don Graham
Mark Zuckerberg’s number one bro and the owner of the Washington Post Company scored some Facebook shares early on after one of Zuck’s friends in Kirkland House made a very serendipitous introduction. The Atlantic Wire’s own Dino Grandioni explained last week, “As for Graham, known buddy of Zuckerberg, he told Forbes’ Jeff Bercovici in a statement that he plans to donate his entire Facebook windfall of likely $46 million to charity. “I won’t sell any Facebook shares as long as I’m on the board,” he writes. “When I leave, all my Facebook shares will be donated to two or three D.C. education-related charities I’ve supported over the years.” We’re starting to notice a trend here…
Accel Partners
Accel Partners is the venture capital firm basically built its now global venture capital business based on an early, smart investment into Facebook. Says Copeland, “Accel Partners, which owns 201.4 million shares, could see a thousand-fold return on its initial investment.” That’s pretty good!
Microsoft
People love to compare The Mark Zuckerberg Fable to The Bill Gates Story. Both went to Harvard; neither really fit in; but both of them were very smart and good at computers, a talent that inevitable helped both men earn a fortune. We all know that Gates left Harvard and eventually created Microsoft, that company that makes Windows. Pointing to the Microsoft press release and a BusinessWeek article, Wikipedia says, “On October 24, 2007, Microsoft announced that it had purchased a 1.6% share of Facebook for $240 million, giving Facebook a total implied value of around $15 billion. Microsoft’s purchase included rights to place international ads on Facebook.” So now you know.
Mr. Zuckerberg
The Westchester, New York-based dentist that is Mark Zuckerberg’s father also made some money. Grandioni again, “There’s Mark Zuckerberg’s dad, who gave a little bit initial capital off his dentist’s salary to get his son’s project off the ground. He gets $2 million.” We don’t know how he’ll spend it, but we hope he’ll buy his son a really sweet birthday present this year. Or maybe they can go to a Yankees game on Father’s Day or something.
#Facebook #Mark Zuckerberg #Peter Thiel #Venture Capital #Social Media #Microsoft #America
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Use Google? Time to Get Real About Protecting Your Digital Self
Google’s decided to integrate the data it has about you, which means you better think about the digital tracks you’re leaving. Read more.
[Image: Alexis Madrigal]
Same goes for Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, The Internet, etc.](http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lydfzveCWe1qcokc4o1_500.jpg)
