You may have seen all over the news lately that some people have estimated the worth of Facebook at $10 billion.  Yes, that’s right, billion with a ‘b’.  And opinions have exploded all over the place, with most people decrying the rather high value that has been set.

First of all, the math is a little off.  The $10 billion calculation comes from the deal that was just announced, where Russian firm Digital Sky Technologies bought 2% (actually 1.96%, but please, I’m rounding up) of preferred Facebook stock for $200 million dollars.  People have been using the equation if 2% = $200 million, then 100% = $10 billion, which isn’t exactly an apples-to-apples comparison, because the 2% was not common stock, but preferred so the common valuation for the company would actually be lower.

Still, the fact remains that Facebook is worth more than any of us will likely see in our lifetimes.  And that makes its founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, a very rich, or rather richer (and some would argue lucky) man.  And that somehow makes it necessary for people and pundits out there to try and cut him down to size because he dared to succeed where most of the rest of us have tried (or thought about but not actually tried) and failed.

Why is there the need to pick apart the value of Facebook?

Both Digital Sky and Microsoft have paid hundreds of millions of dollars for the privilege of having infinitesimal amounts of Facebook stock.  Zuckerberg has pulled in almost $500 million and given up less than 5% of his company; frankly we should be lauding his success and asking him to hold our babies in the chance that some of that skill/luck might rub off on them.

“But Facebook doesn’t make any money!!” … you cry.

While it’s true that Facebook suffers from the social media disease (hee) that also affects Twitter (the one where when you give away everything for free, if millions are using it, you get 0 x infinity, which is still 0) but it is not without resources.  And more importantly, to draw in this kind of money from people who know what they’re talking about, it’s not without plans, either.

“But the new design sucks!”

Umm…so what?

People are still using it.  People are still getting results from it.  And people like me are still using it to promote their businesses (are you?)

“But Beacon was a disaster!”

Well, yes, so it was.

And the fact that Facebook is still alive and kicking and having people invest hundreds of millions of dollars into it speaks well of its ability to both adapt and recover from setbacks.

“But Zuckerberg is a control freak who’s ruining the company!!”

Really?  According to whom?  Mark Zuckerberg is a 25 year old who has accomplished an amazing amount of things so far in his life for anybody, much less someone under the age of 30.  He has a knack for coming up with ingenious pieces of technology.  Even if any of the accounts of his control-freak leadership are true (and I’m certainly not saying they are) he’s 25 years old.  How many of us would have been able to run a billion dollar company at that age?

Like I said, you’re all jus’ jellus.  And so am I, but at least I can admit it.

(And lest I contradict my own post about the importance of good grammar, those misspellings in the title were intentional.)

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So what comments do you have?

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