Facebook’s growth by the numbers (infographic)

Buried in Facebook's 21,890 word registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission are a ton of new facts and figures about the social media company. Since there's a larger-than-usual amount of buzz surrounding Facebook upcoming initial public offering, one of the best ways to cut through the noise is to look at the numbers.

Famous hackers discuss Zuckerberg’s “Hacker Way” comments

In last week’s SEC filing, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg poked a huge hornet’s nest when he referenced “The Hacker Way.”

Some of the pioneers of the hacker ethos and culture have previously defined hacking as having strong connections to tinkering, “playing” with code and systems, and most importantly, absolute freedom.

The kind of freedom those earlier hackers talk about is the freedom to inspect, to look under the hood, to break, to tamper, to share, … Continue Reading

Beware the king: Zuckerberg’s voting power a risk to shareholders

As VentureBeat’s Jolie O’Dell pointed out yesterday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg managed to strike a deal with some key investors and friends that gives him 57 percent of the shareholder voting power. For a public company, it’s an almost unheard of concentration of authority, a troubling sign for those who focus on shareholder rights.

“The public has no say in the control of the board, which in my view is terribly harmful to any notion … Continue Reading

Power play: How Zuckerberg wrested control of Facebook from his shareholders

Mark Zuckerberg controls a majority of Facebook’s voting rights, and will continue to enjoy that control after it goes public, according to an unusual arrangement he struck with some key investors and colleagues among Facebook’s shareholders.

A string of voting arrangements outlined in Facebook’s SEC filing show that some of the company’s most powerful shareholders have ceded their voting rights to Zuckerberg, the company’s chief executive. While Zuckerberg only owns 28.2 percent of the Facebook’s … Continue Reading

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg made $30.9M in 2011

Facebook’s second in command COO Sheryl Sandberg was compensated millions more than any other Facebooker in 2011 — founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg included.

The social network’s leading lady took home $295,833 in base salary, $86,133 in bonus money, and $30.49 million in stock awards (an estimated value) for a grand total of almost $30.9 million in 2011.

The juicy tidbit was unearthed in the executive compensation section of Facebook’s S-1 document, filed Wednesday.

Read … Continue Reading

How “The Hacker Way” helped propel Facebook to market dominance

Facebook's core values include a powerful, results-oriented, anti-theoretical philosophy called "The Hacker Way," according to founder Mark Zuckerberg.

"The Hacker Way is an approach to building that involves continuous improvement and iteration," Zuckerberg writes. "Hackers believe that something can always be better, and that nothing is ever complete. They just have to go fix it -- often in the face of people who say it’s impossible or are content with the status quo."

BREAKING: Facebook files its S-1; let the IPO hoopla begin

Facebook has filed its S-1 form with the SEC, announcing its intention to go public.

The SEC filing is included at the end of this post for your convenience, since this news has understandably had a negative impact on the SEC’s site.

The stock ticker symbol will be FB. No starting price has yet been named, but Facebook did say in the filing it expects to raise $5 billion in the IPO. The transaction may … Continue Reading

Facebook user data: 845M monthly users, 2.7B daily likes & comments

Facebook filed for an initial public offering today, and included an updated report on the giant social network’s user and usage data.

The company’s total number of active monthly users, which it defines as registered Facebook users who have logged in and visited the site via web browser/mobile device (including interactions from third-party sites), was 845 million as of December 31, 2011. That’s up by about 45 million since the company’s last update at September’s … Continue Reading

Facebook made $1B on $3.7B in revenue last year

Facebook has been on a rocket ride to social network dominance. Now we know that it’s making some money from that ride.

The social-networking company made $3.7 billion in revenue in 2011, according to the S-1 documents it filed with the SEC today. Facebook filed the documents as the first step in going public. No starting price has yet been named, but Facebook said it expects to raise $5 billion in the IPO. The transaction … Continue Reading

Mark Zuckerberg owns 28.2% of Facebook, Peter Thiel has 2.5%

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg owns 28.2 percent of the company, according to Facebook's just-released IPO S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Facebook's initial public offering is one of the most hyped technology events of the year, and the company is expected to debut on the stock market in May. Its stock ticker symbol will be "FB." The company has not yet named a starting price has yet been named, but Facebook said in the filing that it expects to raise at least $5 billion in the IPO.

Dylan’s Desk: 6 things you should know about the Facebook IPO

If Facebook files its paperwork for an initial public offering this week, as many expect it to do, we’ll be on the road to one of the biggest tech IPOs in recent history.

The offering will probably raise $10 billion in cash for the company and will value Facebook at somewhere between $75 and $100 billion, making founder Mark Zuckerberg, who holds an estimated 24 percent of the company, a billionaire many times over. That … Continue Reading

Privacy’s state of the union: Google follows Facebook down the path of no return

Google made some sweeping changes to its privacy policies yesterday. It let users know it will be combining data from all of its services, from search to email to photos. This will give Google a much more detailed picture of its users, allowing it to deliver more relevant services, and of course, more targeted advertisements.

People have a right to be angry about this. Faye Kakia, a fashion designer who creates virtual clothing to sell … Continue Reading

Mark Zuckerberg asks his 11M Facebook subscribers to stop SOPA

When Mark Zuckerberg speaks, people listen. Wednesday, the celebrity Facebook founder is wielding this power and influence to fight the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act using the best tool at his disposal: the social network he created.

“The internet is the most powerful tool we have for creating a more open and connected world. We can’t let poorly thought out laws get in the way of the internet’s development,” Zuckerberg wrote … Continue Reading

Last week Steve Jobs was a doll, this week, a comic book

BANG! POW! SIMPLIFYING THE USER EXPERIENCE! Steve Jobs is being immortalized yet again, this time in comic book form.

The comic book is titled “Steve Jobs: Founder of Apple and is scheduled to hit Amazon as well as physical newsstands and comic books stores on Wednesday. Soon after Jobs’ death in October, people became hungry for more on his life story. Walter Isaacson’s biography was hugely anticipated, but despite its completeness, people still wanted more. … Continue Reading

Facebook confirms new corporate structure, privacy may be to blame

Facebook‘s corporate structure is getting a facelift with five new product groups that will report directly to founder Mark Zuckerberg.

“We can confirm that in order to streamline the product development process, we have reorganized our technical teams into product groups that report into Mark,” Facebook told All Things D. “These groups will be lead by Bret Taylor, Chris Cox, Greg Badros, Mike Schroepfer and Sam Lessin.”

What each group will be responsible for is … Continue Reading

Under pressure, Facebook updates its privacy principles

The Federal Trade Commission and Facebook’s relationship status won’t read “it’s complicated” anymore, since the two companies settled a longstanding privacy suit today.

The social network has often come under fire for its privacy policies, a spark which fully ignited after Facebook changed the privacy settings of its users without permission in 2009. For example, Facebook suddenly set friends lists, photos and other information to a default publicly visible setting, even if the person had … Continue Reading

Facebook’s New Year’s resolution: Go public

With 2011 winding to a close, talk of Facebook’s long-rumored 2012 initial public offering is crescendoing to cacophonous levels. A new report purporting that Facebook is targeting an IPO date between April and June of the upcoming year is adding to the orchestra.

Facebook is looking to raise $10 billion at a $100 billion valuation through the offering, has its paperwork ready to go, and is already in talks with the Securities and Exchange Commission … Continue Reading

Co-founder of “open-source Facebook” Diaspora dies at 22

Ilya Zhitomirskiy, the 22-year-old co-founder of the Diaspora social network — which gained recognition for challenging Facebook — died this weekend, the company confirmed Monday.

The official cause of death has not been reported, but CNNMoney has said that it was likely suicide, according to an anonymous source. Neither the company nor the San Francisco Medical Examiner’s office has released details on the death, and the San Francisco Coroner’s Office has stated that determining the … Continue Reading