According to a market valuation, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, might be the third wealthiest tech titan, just behind Oracle’s Larry Ellison and Bill Gates. What makes this even more interesting is that he’s by far the youngest.
Zuckerberg has been an up-and-coming star in the online business space. The truth is that Facebook, known at the time as “The Facebook”, began as an experiment inside Harvard, where he studied. Compelled by its success, however, Mark quickly dropped out and slowly turned Facebook into the gold standard of social networking, at least at this point.
The recent value figures shouldn’t come as a surprise. Although Facebook hasn’t started an IPO yet, some investors have already privately bought Facebook stock. One of the recent buyers was GSV Capital, which purchased 225,000 shares from Facebook, each one valued at $29.28 on average. In all, the transaction was estimated to have been as high as $6.59 million. As pointed out by GSV Capital, these investments sharply increase the value of companies, as well as its owners and investors (hint: Mark):
Based on the newest figures, Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth should amount to roughly $18 billion. That’s higher than many well-known tech icons, such as Steve Jobs, who is estimated to be worth around $8.3 billion, and Google’s co-founders Sergey Bin and Larry Page, estimated to be valued at $17 billion.
Facebook has resisted years of pressure to open an IPO, which could have increased the company’s cash flow dramatically. Publicly traded companies, however, also have to report to its shareholders, who can then influence many of the company’s decisions. Imagine how much Facebook’s stock would have dropped during the whole privacy fiasco just over a year ago, and how much pressure shareholders would have placed on the company’s management to change course. Without an IPO, the company has the freedom to make its own decisions without being held accountable to its shareholders.
There’s speculation that we’ll see an IPO next year. Around that time, the company should be valued at roughly $100 billion (up from $70 billion right now). Whether we see an IPO or not, one thing is certain: Facebook has gone a long way since “The Facebook”
via (Redmonpie)
