And Google better watch out. Magnet Zuckerberg is pulling in both cash and consumers
In the US, Facebook has overtaken Google as the most-visited site. In the UK, too, social networks are overtaking search engines in terms of Internet visits. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was also voted the Time Person of the Year 2010. The magazine noted that in less than seven years, Zuckerberg had ?wired together a twelfth of humanity into a single network, thereby creating a social entity almost twice as large as the US.? If all of this was not enough to give Google nightmares, the fact that Facebook just got a $50 billion valuation (which is 25 times its current revenues and almost twice Google?s worth after its first day as a public company) by Goldman Sachs and a $500 million investment piles up the case for Facebook overtaking Google as the most successful Internet company spun out of Silicon Valley. Note that Larry Page and Sergey Brin, at the time of their 2004 IPO, set up two classes of shares in an effort to retain control against Wall Street volatility. They have reason to envy Facebook?s ability to tap into big monies without getting tied down by the IPO process?disclosures of profits, revenues, employment et al.
As IPO bragging rights go through a noticeable downturn in the US start-up sector, Facebook is not alone in deriving strength from a secondary market for shares of private companies. For example, Twitter is doing the same. It held off Facebook?s $500 million offer in 2008 and is now valued at $3.7 billion. There is some talk of new Internet bubbles, but it?s not going to keep Goldman?s millionaire clients from plumping for some Facebook stock?even though it?s going to be illiquid for two years.