Facebook to let employees sell some stock — at internal $4 billion valuation

Re:Facebook to let employees sell some stock — at internal $... by netcan on Monday August 04, 2008 @09:19PM (#267016)

$4b is an awful lot. Especially since any potential business model is still to be really proven. The sort of targeted advertising they are aiming for is not necessarily easy to pull off. And I think it will take a couple of years to prove it either way.

I wonder what this does to their runway?

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Re:Facebook to let employees sell some stock — at internal $... by joeter on Tuesday August 05, 2008 @10:27AM (#267470)

$4b seems much too high to me as well. facebook has two main values that are only valuable due to high number of users.

1- source of contact - substitutes include: old aol, aim, email, ichat, ect

2- representation of self to world - substitutes include myspace, most social networks, ect

asian markets have different preferences for representation of self than those facebook emphasizes.

facebook is having troubling scaling globally AND they plan to monetize on only advertising.

those employees made out nicely.

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Re:Facebook to let employees sell some stock — at internal $... by netcan on Tuesday August 05, 2008 @10:35PM (#268147)

True, and neither of those are money-makers. The whole 'we'll make money off it with advertising later' has failed many times. Search is the exception not the rule.

Until I actually saw some innovative advertising method making advertisers money and getting an excited response in that community, I'd be sceptical that they can do more with a pageview then NYT.com or About.com or any other 'site.'

At banner ad monetisation rates, that would probably put them at around the $50m - $500m p/y mark.

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Re:Facebook to let employees sell some stock — at internal $... by sanj on Monday August 04, 2008 @09:38PM (#267030)

Why would it change their runway?

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Re:Facebook to let employees sell some stock — at internal $... by netcan on Monday August 04, 2008 @10:52PM (#267091)

I assumed that the company was buying back the stock using the company piggy bank.

But as mentioned below, maybe this is achieved by direct trading between employees or investors.

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