Facebook Goes Public with IPO
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As he takes Facebook public, Mark Zuckerberg has lofty goals: nothing less than transforming "many parts of society." Will investors agree that "the riskiest thing is to take no risks" when he's using their money? Also, the jobless rate falls to a three-year low, and the Komen Foundation apologizes and restores funds to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screening of poor women. Did abortion politics play a role?
Banner image: A sign with the 'like' symbol stands in front of the Facebook headquarters on February 1, 2012 in Menlo Park, California. Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Making News
Jobless Rate Falls to a Three-Year Low ()
Unemployment in January dropped to its lowest level in three years, 8.3 percent, with most of the job in the private sector, including manufacturing. President Obama took the Labor Department report as evidence that the recovery is speeding up. Daniel Gross is economics editor at Yahoo! Finance.
Guests:
- Daniel Gross: Yahoo Finance, @grossdm
Main Topic
Can Facebook Go Public and Change the World? ()
When Facebook goes public, it's expected to be the biggest initial public offering (IPO) in Silicon Valley history, possibly raising $10 billion on a value of $100 billion. Founder Mark Zuckerberg says, "We don't build services to make money, we make money to build better services." What will that mean to potential investors — especially when Zuckerberg, age 27 — will retain almost total control? Will becoming a publicly traded company necessarily change his style? How will he deal with government oversight, especially overseas? As he sells the personal data of 800 million "friends," will they all stay comfortable or raise more questions about violations of privacy?
Guests:
- Lise Buyer: Class V Group
- Nate Elliott: Forrester Research, @nate_elliott
- Douglas Rushkoff: media theorist, @rushkoff
- Tim Wu: Columbia Law School
Links:
- Rushkoff on the meaning of Facebook's IPO for users, competitors and the economy
- Rushkoff's 'Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age'
- Wu on our growing dependence on the 'new monopolists'
- Wu on Facebook's 'foreign policy' as it taps into markets in 'unfriendly countries'
- Wu's 'The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires'
- TtP 'Notebook' on Google's 2004 IPO
Reporter's Notebook
Komen Foundation Reverses Decision to Cut Off Planned Parenthood ()
The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation has apologized "to the American public" and restored funding to Planned Parenthood for breast-cancer screening. Komen insists the cutoff was not the result of political pressure or a penalty because Planned Parenthood also finances abortions. But interviews with "three sources with direct knowledge" say the board created a new rule to provide an excuse for cutting some $600,000 dollars annually. That's according to Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic magazine.
Guests:
- Jeffrey Goldberg: The Atlantic, @JeffreyGoldberg
Links:
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