So Facebook's IPO was pretty much a Flop

[TonK]

noone cares about fucking stock bullshit. if you even have the slightest feeling that you are understanding what you are doing there you have to be brainwashed pretty good. oh and facebook is worthless shit... big news...

thank you and close plz

I do.

[Skykid]

Fuck Zuckerburg. I hope he drowns in his money.

Zuckerberg is cool actually, probably the only billionaire I have any respect for simply because he genuinely doesn't seem to care so much about money. His interviews are always interesting because he's still kind of nerdy/insecure and when asked about his wealth he just says he doesn't do that much with it because he's working all the time. He doesn't even have a PC at home because he has to look at a monitor all day.

And he paid those Uni kids a billion dollars for Instagram just because he doesn't like farting around with competitors lol.

[burgerkingdiamond]

Fuck Zuckerburg. I hope he drowns in his money.

Zuckerberg is cool actually, probably the only billionaire I have any respect for simply because he genuinely doesn't seem to care so much about money. His interviews are always interesting because he's still kind of nerdy/insecure and when asked about his wealth he just says he doesn't do that much with it because he's working all the time. He doesn't even have a PC at home because he has to look at a monitor all day.

And he paid those Uni kids a billion dollars for Instagram just because he doesn't like farting around with competitors lol.

That's my blanket statement for any body with a $1,000,000,000 or more in the bank. With that kind of money you are no longer a human being.

[Friendly]

Fuck Zuckerburg. I hope he drowns in his money.

Zuckerberg is cool actually

Actually, no. By all accounts, he is a total asshole, bad character.

And he stole the idea for facebook, while stalling a competing project (Harvard Connect), which he pretended to work on.

FRIEND: so have you decided what you are going to do about the websites?
ZUCK: yea i’m going to fuck them
ZUCK: probably in the year
ZUCK: *ear

Another nice quote from his Harvard days, after he started facebook:

ZUCK: yea so if you ever need info about anyone at harvard
ZUCK: just ask
ZUCK: i have over 4000 emails, pictures, addresses, sns
FRIEND: what!? how’d you manage that one?
ZUCK: people just submitted it
ZUCK: i don’t know why
ZUCK: they “trust me”
ZUCK: dumb fucks

http://wallstcheatsheet.com/breaking-ne ... aled.html/
http://articles.businessinsider.com/201 ... cebook-ceo

Dumb fucks, what a nice way to describe the users of facebook.

[louisg]

Oh, so the IMs are proven to be real then? It's not really too surprising. You don't get to be a filthy rich businessman by being a super nice genius guy who's completely genuine. That's the impression of starry-eyed people outside of the field who look at Silicon Valley the same way people outside of LA look at Hollywood. Business is war.

[Friendly]

While there may be a correlation between being an asshole and becoming filthy rich, surely not everyone who made it big is a douche on the level of Zuckerberg. Totally infantile and untrustworthy.

[Friendly]

Yeah, I wouldn't buy a used car from him. I might *almost* buy a used car from Steve Jobs.

Hahah.

One more thing, you called him a

businessman

That he is not. He has no clue about business (example: $1bn acquisition of Instagram last month). Which is one of the underlying problems of facebook.

[ancestral-knowledge]

It's always funny to see how much people (especially in a shmups forum) "know" about zuckerberg. Yes of course... you really know that he's evil and all that shit because you saw some fake IRC logs posted... are you guys fucking comedians here?

Tell me more about Zuckerberg and his intentions please. Oh and of course about Bill Gates and Steve Jobs too. Another two guys internet heroes know everything about ... obviously...

How about you just flat out admit that you have no fucking idea about the person Zuckerberg ?

[Friendly]

noone cares about fucking stock bullshit. if you even have the slightest feeling that you are understanding what you are doing there you have to be brainwashed pretty good. oh and facebook is worthless shit... big news...

thank you and close plz

That's awesome.

It's always funny to see how much people (especially in a shmups forum) "know" about zuckerberg. Yes of course... you really know that he's evil and all that shit because you saw some fake IRC logs posted... are you guys fucking comedians here?

Tell me more about Zuckerberg and his intentions please. Oh and of course about Bill Gates and Steve Jobs too. Another two guys internet heroes know everything about ... obviously...

How about you just flat out admit that you have no fucking idea about the person Zuckerberg ?

Thank you for sharing.

[ryu]

didn't zuckerberg flat out state in an interview that he doesn't value privacy?

[Friendly]

didn't zuckerberg flat out state in an interview that he doesn't value privacy?

Of course not, that's what facebook's business model relies upon. That and its users being "dumb fucks" who share everything.

[Skykid]

Fuck Zuckerburg. I hope he drowns in his money.

Zuckerberg is cool actually

Actually, no. By all accounts, he is a total asshole, bad character.

And he stole the idea for facebook, while stalling a competing project (Harvard Connect), which he pretended to work on.

Er... so? He did pretty well out of it. Good call.

That and its users being "dumb fucks" who share everything.

But he's right, they are dumb fucks.
Same as all the other dumb fucks on the internet who sign up to every giveaway and share their personal details with online financial authorities and surveys.

Just because something he said in private suddenly makes it to light everyone is shocked, lol. I can imagine a few US medical insurance companies have said far worse about their clients.

I hate Facebook, but I don't hate Zuckerberg. I've seen worse Billionaires.

[Friendly]

Breaking news:
Facebook Bankers Secretly Cut Forecasts For Company In Middle Of IPO Roadshow

Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, and Goldman Sachs. Remember those names, kids. You can totally trust these people with your money.

In related news:
Facebook's stock fell another 8.9% today. Those who bought it for $42 on Friday now have 29% less money.

[Mischief Maker]

It's always funny to see how much people (especially in a shmups forum) "know" about zuckerberg. Yes of course... you really know that he's evil and all that shit because you saw some fake IRC logs posted... are you guys fucking comedians here?

I would think a history of betraying people's trust would be a pretty good indicator of his character. Advising fellows to avoid doing business transactions with a company he has total control over because of his untrustworthy character sounds to me like a worthwhile exchange, even in the off-topic section of a shmups forum. Just like telling a friend not to put money on a pool game played against someone who has the reputation of being a hustler, even if you've never shared such intimacy with said hustler that you can say you know his very soul.

Or did you mean "know" in the biblical sense?

[Davey]

Calling it a flop seems premature; it hasn't even been a week yet. Given all the hype and uncertainty, it'll probably be pretty volatile for a while. As I understand it, everybody acknowledges that their current stock price is way too high based on their current business model. They make a lot of money (unlike tech companies in the last bubble), just not enough to be valued at $100 billion. So what people are paying for is Facebook's long-term growth potential. Either that, or they're just being short-term speculators (i.e., gamblers).

<pipe dream>
Even if you're not a fan of theirs (I'm not), you can't deny that they have a huge user base, a huge infrastructure, a lot of inertia, thousands of really smart employees, and a mountain of cash. Maybe they'll build something that's actually cool in the future. Nobody bought Google stock in 2004 thinking they'd create a mobile phone platform or build self driving cars, nor did anybody buy Amazon stock in 1997 thinking they'd create a market for digital books or get into web hosting.

Okay, so maybe all of those things don't actually make money...
</pipe dream>

The more realistic scenario is that they'll basically just keep doing what they're doing and try to find new ways to make money off of it. Figuring out a way to not lose money on mobile users would be a good first step. If this is all they've got, yeah, I don't see their stock doing so hot.

That aside, while I agree that Zuckerburg doesn't have enough respect for privacy, I think the whole "dumb fucks" comment was blown out of proportion. It was from a private conversation amongst college dudes. You have to take it in context. When I was in college, I worked for the university help desk fixing computers for faculty and staff. Sometimes professors would give me their passwords. Me. A student. I'm an honest guy and so were my coworkers, but that's a huge risk. While I never called them dumb fucks, being the sarcastic asshole that I am, I probably made some off-color jokes about their naivete in private conversations at some point. If such a conversation were made public, I'd probably sound like a disingenuous grade tamperer.

Having said that, I don't give Facebook any more information than I have to, and I don't put anything on there that I wouldn't scream from the mountaintops (probably irrelevant because I only use it to talk to people I met through this forum, but whatever).

[louisg]

It's always funny to see how much people (especially in a shmups forum) "know" about zuckerberg. Yes of course... you really know that he's evil and all that shit because you saw some fake IRC logs posted... are you guys fucking comedians here?

Tell me more about Zuckerberg and his intentions please. Oh and of course about Bill Gates and Steve Jobs too. Another two guys internet heroes know everything about ... obviously...

How about you just flat out admit that you have no fucking idea about the person Zuckerberg ?

I thought they were fake at first too. But, no: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010 ... ntPage=all

Apologies to everyone whose lassez-faire benevolent-CEOs-will-save-us-all view of the world I've destroyed

[xbl0x180]

F***! I have no idea what I'm doing. I lost a few hundred on mutual funds BWAAAah

[Ed Oscuro]

F***! I have no idea what I'm doing. I lost a few hundred on mutual funds BWAAAah

You're not using me in place of a real financial advisor, are you? I got free advice from my bank on this, and ended up not putting the money into anything.

By the way, it's interesting how people's reactions to Zuckerberg's character have jumped from "what a lovable guy" to "well it serves them right anyway, privacy isn't valued by anybody on the internet obviously"

Worse billionaires? What does that have to do with it? This is a guy who just became a multi-billionaire with a large part of his fortune directly attributable to something seemingly like fraud, if the recent reports are true, and who thinks nothing of taking $1bn of other people's money and shitting it away on a completely useless photo-sharing app that could be created in-house. I don't know, maybe they wanted the Instagram users...that's the modern internet corporation for you: Valuing everything about customers except the customers (and their rights) themselves.

[xbl0x180]

F***! I have no idea what I'm doing. I lost a few hundred on mutual funds BWAAAah

You're not using me in place of a real financial advisor, are you? I got free advice from my bank on this, and ended up not putting the money into anything.

Hahahah. Nah, man. I had those for years

[Ed Oscuro]

"Free advice from the bank on this" meaning on prospective mutual funds a while back - I wouldn't bother them for something as tepid as Facebook stock (or any stock picks) advice, sorry for the confusion there.

Glad to hear you've got a plan!

[null1024]

Or did you mean "know" in the biblical sense?

Ahahaha, jeez.
This made me roll with laughter, well played.

[Ed Oscuro]

I feel like the author of this article is speaking directly to Friendly.

I had to smile at the "people we fly over" bit.

Quoted in the linked article:

“I think it’s a good thing, the only way to kill the hype that goes into some of these goofy IPOs is to make the people pay for getting sucked in. It’s a hard lesson, but next time people might pay more attention,” [Paul ] Carroll [a former WSJ tech reporter] said, speaking as if he echoed the view of the heartland.

[Friendly]

Calling it a flop seems premature

Not at all. The acronym IPO stands for initial public offering.

I feel like the author of this article is speaking directly to Friendly.

Not really, I take no pleasure in having been right while Wallstreet and the media were wrong. I take pleasure in having been right after doing an actual financial analysis prior to the IPO, using the data Facebook provided and other public information (yes, I didn't just read what others wrote; I took Facebook's IPO Prospectus and did the actual calculations myself), and then decided to stay the heck away. The parties I actively dislike are Facebook and the banksters who acted as underwriters and who made billions by duping investors- after the article I linked to above I wouldn't even consider a criminal investigation (for fraud) to be totally out of order. I also can't deny some schadenfreude about the stock tanking now (=moving to a more realistic level of valuation).

It’s a hard lesson, but next time people might pay more attention

They won't, that's the beauty of it. You can do it over and over again.

[Davey]

Calling it a flop seems premature

Not at all. The acronym IPO stands for initial public offering.

Let's say it goes up to $40 by the end of this week. Would it still be a flop?

At what price would it not be a flop? If there were huge gains on the first day, it would have just meant that the underwriters left a lot of money on the table.

[Ed Oscuro]

Let's say it goes up to $40 by the end of this week. Would it still be a flop?

That seems about as likely as Facebook's headquarters turning into a field of asparagus (with some arcade machines lying on their sides).

Yes, it's a flop, by the reckoning of the people suing the Nasdaq and everybody who lost money buying in at $40/share. Holding flat on your IPO in its opening week is no great accomplishment.

It might make money later, but this not a proven business model at all.

For the size and interest in this IPO, you'd expect it to at least hold somewhat steady, like many other large IPOs (for proven companies) from history.

I'm also not about to congratulate the underwriters for pricing the stock too high.

In case this isn't convincing, here are the first two news stories Google put up for simply searching for 'IPO facebook:'
http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2012/ ... -overreach
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/ ... story.html

[Strider77]

Why does anyone care about this crap?

[Ed Oscuro]

Yeah, who cares about the economy?

[Strider77]

Does the economy rely on gossip and hear say about the creator of facebook?!?

[BulletMagnet]

Does the economy rely on gossip and hear say about the creator of facebook?!?

You REALLY don't want to know the answer to that question.

[Davey]

Let's say it goes up to $40 by the end of this week. Would it still be a flop?

That seems about as likely as Facebook's headquarters turning into a field of asparagus (with some arcade machines lying on their sides).

I never said I thought it would, and especially not now given today's news. I'm just trying to figure out what the expectation was, because for it to be a flop, it'd have to fall far below that. I guess people are trained to expect double-digit gains based purely on hype? Based on the headlines you'd think they're on the verge of bankruptcy. It's down about 15%... not good, but not surprising given that people who are a lot smarter and more knowledgeable than any of us can't agree on what Facebook is actually worth. Before today I would have said that a 25% swing in either direction wouldn't surprise me (reality bringing it down vs. hype pushing it up), although now that the SEC is getting involved, any significant gains would surprise me. Although it did go up a buck today... if these trends continue, eeehhhh.

Holding flat on your IPO in its opening week is no great accomplishment.

It's not necessarily a failure, either. In ordinary circumstances (i.e., not this case), it basically just means that the underwriters valued the stock at the same price that the market did. A first day jump means they underpriced the stock, and that a lot of money that could have went to them went to other people buying and selling their stock instead. Although supposedly there are advantages to that that I admittedly don't know much about.

For the size and interest in this IPO, you'd expect it to at least hold somewhat steady, like many other large IPOs (for proven companies) from history.

Looking at other high-profile tech IPOs in recent history (Groupon, Zynga, Pandora, LinkedIn...), steadiness isn't something I'd expect. Yes, those are smaller, younger, unproven companies, but their stock prices were similarly driven by hype.