Zuckerberg: The end goal isn't to sell the company or IPO

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10 points·markbao··6 comments

Yeah, I'm sure his VCs are happy with that statement and they'll go along with that plan...

If you're a VC-backed company, you usually have a maximum of 7 years to make an exit. The clock usually runs out much faster since the company is either acquired long before then or it slumps and VCs take what's left of their money and put it into something else. As for IPO market... it's dead for majority of companies until SOX is overturned.

This is stupid. What possible incentive would he have to announce an exit intention prematurely other than to sabotage the perceived value of his company in an exit?

He's said this before (for example, in the interview with Sarah Lacy at SXSW). His statement echoes Larry and Sergey's 20 year commitment to Google.

It seems reasonable that Zuckerberg is telling the truth. He will get rich no matter what, and the desire to Do Something Great is an almost overpowering driving force for some people.

i like zuckerbergs attitude, i dont use facebook myself but appreciate the fact that he really wants to create something rather than just making money.

... he says.

Yeah. "It's about enhancing/enabling communication with the whole world" is a far cry from "I'd like to match up my peers' harvard facebook pictures with farm animals on something like hot or not" (http://tinyurl.com/4vb8dy slate.com) - I imagine the valuation for the latter wouldn't have been as generous, nor its reach as comprehensive =)

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