Facebook Deal with Goldman Offers Freedom From Scrutiny

[groovedaddy]

SAN FRANCISCO — In Silicon Valley, going public used to be the ultimate rite of passage for a start-up — a sign it had arrived.

No more.

With its $500 million infusion from Goldman Sachs and other investors, Facebook is now flush with cash, and a market value of about $50 billion, giving it the financial muscle it needs to compete with better-heeled rivals like Google.

And Facebook hopes for an even bigger advantage from the deal, the ability to delay an initial public offering. That would allow it to remain free of government regulation and from the volatility of Wall Street. It would also allow Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s chief executive, to retain near absolute control over the company he co-founded in a Harvard dorm room in 2004.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/facebook-deal-offers-freedom-from-scrutiny/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha25

[Goblinmonger]

1. I don't see Facebook and Google being in competition on much at all.

Google owns the collaborative, online, cloud-based computing world (regardless of Microsoft's "to the cloud" propaganda). Facebook is a social network. Google dropped their only "social network like" app in Wave (even though I thought it had a lot more potential). Facebook may have offered an email recently, but they are in two different market worlds.

[madrchsod]

2. market value of 50 billion? dam that`s a lot of money for a...

crappy website.

[groovedaddy]

3. More on this

Can Goldman Sachs, the profit-seeking missile of high finance, really make money by investing $450 million in Facebook, at a vertigo-inducing price that values the social-networking company at $50 billion?

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/friends-with-benefits/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=thab1