Can Facebook Go Public and Change the World?

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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?

Credits

Guests:

  • Lise Buyer - Class V Group
  • Nate Elliott - Forrester Research - @nate_elliott
  • Douglas Rushkoff - professor of media theory and data economics at Queens/CUNY, author of “Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires” - @rushkoff
  • Tim Wu - professor of law, science and technology at Columbia Law School; author of "The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age" - @superwuster

Host:

Warren Olney