Problem
I. What milestones do you think would have been appropriate for Facebook to establish early on to help evaluate the merits of the venture and to attract outside funding?
II. How would you characterise the various stages of development that Facebook has gone through up to its IPO?
III. What stages of financing has Facebook gone through? How do the financing stages correspond to the milestones you identified in Question I, and the development stages in question II?
IV. Explain how Facebook's valuation has evolved over time.
V. Consider the Facebook IPO in early 2012. Why do you think Zuckerberg decided to undertake an initial public offering at that time? In retrospect, do you think investors were receptive to the offering?
VI. What do you think of the price of Facebook's shares in early 2012? What sorts of performance targets would the management need to achieve to maintain the price?