The Borowitz Report has released a copy of Mark Zuckerberg’s pre-IPO letter to potential Facebook investors. Snarky stuff from the guy who showed up at an investment bank meeting in a hoodie recently. Zuckerberg’s letter is followed by a couple of thoughts of my own.
Dear Potential Investor:
For years, you’ve wasted your time on Facebook. Now here’s your chance to waste your money on it, too.
Tomorrow is Facebook’s IPO, and I know what some of you are thinking. How will Facebook be any different from the dot-com bubble of the early 2000’s?
For one thing, those bad dot-com stocks were all speculation and hype, and weren’t based on real businesses. Facebook, on the other hand, is based on a solid foundation of angry birds and imaginary sheep.
Second, Facebook is the most successful social network in the world, enabling millions to share information of no interest with people they barely know.
Third, every time someone clicks on a Facebook ad, Facebook makes money. And while no one has ever done this on purpose, millions have done it by mistake while drunk. We totally stole this idea from iTunes.
Finally, if you invest in Facebook, you’ll be far from alone. As a result of using Facebook for the past few years, over 900 million people in the world have suffered mild to moderate brain damage, impairing their ability to make reasoned judgments. These will be your fellow Facebook investors.
With your help, if all goes as planned tomorrow, Facebook’s IPO will net $100 billion. To put that number in context, it would take JP Morgan four or five trades to lose that much money.
One last thing: what will, I, Mark Zuckerberg, do with the $18 billion I’m expected to earn from Facebook’s IPO? Well, I’m considering buying Greece, but that would still leave me with $18 billion. LOL.
Friend me,
Mark
Any takeaways from this? Here are three. Feel free to add your insights in the comments.
1. Be who you are at all times. Many organizational settings will actively or passively demand conformity. Be who you are. If you cannot be who you are find another place to work. When Zuckerberg met with the investment bankers he wore what he likes to wear, even though he was criticized for it.
John Eldredge wrote, “Let people feel the weight of who you are and let them deal with it.” This does not mean you have to act like a jerk. That is not weight; that is posturing. If you are most often defined as being a jerk you should start asking God to change who you are. What it does mean is that you have a gravitas you should not deny.
2. Use uniqueness to your advantage. Something about you is different from everyone else at your business or on your church staff. Your uniqueness sets you apart. Cultivate it; do not cover it. The uniqueness of Facebook and its success to date in standing out from MySpace, Friendster, etc, is a reflection of the uniqueness of its leadership. If they were like everyone else Facebook would be like the rest. They are not; it is not.
3. Don’t be afraid to mock yourself. Zuckerberg’s letter is brilliant in pointing out what we all think and know to be true: investors are about to plunk down a hundred billion dollars for a company “based on a solid foundation of angry birds and imaginary sheep.” If this is not full disclosure I don’t know what it.
As an aside, this crowdsourced site is projecting a closing bell price of $54/share for a valuation of $135.7 billion dollars.
Do you think Zuckerberg is a serious business leader for what he has done at Facebook, or just the king of a house of cards in an gathering storm?
