I’ll let the rest of the blogosphere focus (obsess?) on Microsoft’s $240-million investment (for a 1.6% stake) in Facebook but assuming the social networking darling now has a whopping, mind-blowing valuation of $15-billion (for some reason, I’m hearing Carl Sagan’s voice right now), how much is Mark Zuckerberg now worth – at least on paper.
For the sake of argument, let’s be aggressive and assume Facebook had a valuation of $500-million to $750-million when it raised $25-million of venture capital in April, 2006. That would have given the VCs a 3% to 5% stake. Let’s assume Zuckerberg owns 60% of Facebook while Harvard pals Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskowitz and Craig Hughes own 5% each, and employes own another 15%.
That would make Zuckerberg worth about $9-billion. Not quite Larry Page, Sergey Brin rich but it would make him the 73th richest person in the world (alongside media baron Rupert Murdoch) based on the Forbes’ billionaire list. Of course, even if Zuckerberg “only” owns a 40% stake, he’d still be worth $6-billion. Yikes!
For more, check out Silicon Valley Insider while HipMojo suggests Microsoft “is showing some backbone – perhaps foolishly – by not letting Google outbid it”.
Hat to Mathew Ingram, who points out that ValleyWag suggest Zuckerberg’s 30% stake is worth $5-billion. So, I was off a few billion dollars!
Pingback: Early-Morning, Pre-Hockey Thoughts : Mark Evans