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Facebook's Revenues & Highlights From Wall Street Journal Profile

It’s amazing how much momentum Facebook is generating these days. The press is certainly going wild.

Earlier this week, InsideFacebook shared some revenue estimates.

Based on their estimates, as well as one mentioned in the Wall Street Journal today and past ones from Starup Review and Don Dodge, here’s a very rough estimate of Facebook’s revenues since its founding in 2005:

Facebook Revenues for 2005 to 2010 (Estimated & Projected)

Facebook Revenues for 2005 to 2010 (Estimated & Projected)

Today’s Wall Street Journal cover story had these highlights about Facebook:

CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Management Style

  • He is short on praise and believes that getting the product right should be its own reward
  • He is clear and purposeful on vision: believing that Facebook’s promise has to do with facilitating people’s ability to share almost any and everything with anyone at any time via Web sites, mobile phones and even videogames
  • He is a micromanager
  • In Facebook’s earlier years, Zuckerberg ended meetings by pumping his fist in the air and leading employees in a chant of “domination.”
  • Zuckerberg believes he has a special capacity for delaying gratification (and that will be helpful in holding out on an IPO)
  • Good listener: He’s met with Intel CEO Paul Otellini and Oracle President Charles Philips and keeps a long list of advice on his Blackberry
  • Zuckerberg controls votes for three of the five board seats

Facebook passed up on two acquisition offers:

  • Yahoo’s $1 billion offer in 2006 and
  • Microsoft’s offer of $8 billion or more sometime later

Facebook Financials and an IPO

  • Facebook’s revenue could hit $1.2 billion to $2 billion this year (2010)
  • It has been cash-flow positive (enough to pay its 1,200 employees and overhead) since 2009
  • Timing of an IPO: Board member Jim Breyer told a German audience last month that an IPO would not happen in 2010

Zuckerberg is clearly in control of the business

  • Zuckerberg owns more than a quarter of Facebook’s stock
  • Zuckerberg has control over 3 of the 5 board seats

I expect Facebook’s press to escalate further leading up to a likely IPO this year or in 2011; in what would likely be the largest Internet IPO since Google.

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