Facebook

I lived in Silicon Valley during the dot-com years. It doesn't even crack the Top 100 for Craziest IPOs I've Seen. Not that I'd buy it personally (of course, I said the same thing about Google when it opened at $100+).

 

We have a strong tendency to remember the exceptional and forget the mundane. It's easy to say "I should have bought Google, or Microsoft, or Apple, or IBM at the beginning." But for each of those companies, there were a hundred others that failed, but which were indistinguishable a the start.

In 20 years people will be wishing they had bought this or that company, and nobody will remember how many people thought that EEStor was headed for greatness, and took a bath buying Zenn stock on the strength of its stake in the alleged miracle EESU.

 

FWIW, from news reports (also mentioned at Three reasons Facebook has to go public | Digital Media - CNET News), supposedly, they have to go public because they have >500 shareholders.

Unrelated note... I thought this was pretty funny.
Woman accused of trying to sell fake Facebook stock | Technically Incorrect - CNET News

 

Not me. Knowing quite a few used-to-be-millionaires (on paper) who are now working at Starbuck's, I remember the exceptional: the exceptional crash-and-burns. You're right, it's easy to say "I should have bought X", but I tend more to say "I am so glad I never bought (Webvan/Pets.com/whatever dot com) stocks."

 

I always say "I wish I'd bought Apple..." or whatever. But when it comes time to actually buy stock, I buy only token amounts of companies I like to feel part of (Toyota, Tesla) so that I can say I own them, and I put my real investments into mutual funds, which spread the risk and pay dividends (or in the case of bond funds, interest.)

Most new companies fail. They typically present a very high risk, and when they succeed, a very high return. Sort of like roulette. A smart person invests in a new company only when s/he has a good understanding of the business plan, a lot of confidence in the manager, a strong belief in the vision, and a willingness to lose the money if things don't work out.

 

A large fraction of the populace love to chat, and love to gossip. They will use FB (or a look-alike) so long as it is free and available. Much less obvious to me is whether FB has intrinsic economic value. I realize marketers think they can profit by manipulating social networks, but I tend to think that over time FB will come to be viewed as a polluted swamp of commercial interests, somewhat similar to the fate that newsgroups fell prey.

Disclaimer: I do not participate in FaceBook, or bother to read its content. It is just too boring to bother with, like the gossip magazines still sold in supermarkets.

 

On the local PBS station here, there was an interview w/Zuck from 2010 broadcast on a show called Revolutionaries. They've put it online at:

It was decent.