Should you buy Facebook stock? Roundtable panelists discuss
While Facebook was on the public stock market for the first time, we gathered a panel of experts to discuss the merits of the stock and the company overall.
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As Facebook was trading as a public company for the first time today, we assembled a group of tech and finance experts to talk about the new stock. Is it worth buying? What will it do for technology overall? Can Facebook compete on mobile? Our panelists to debate these and related topics:
- Jill Schlesinger from CBS MoneyWatch.com. Jill can help us sort out the pros and cons for investors interested in buying into this mega IPO.
- Andy Rachleff, CEO of Wealthfront, an Internet-era investment advice service. Andy's a venture capitalist at Benchmark Capital. He also teaches entrepreneurship at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He wrote about Facebook's IPO on CNET News in February.
- Tom Merritt, host of Tech News Today on the TWiT network. Tom takes the pulse of the tech world every day on his show.
- Paul Sloan, the main guy covering the Facebook IPO at CNET News.
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Show notes
[0:15] Intro video[1:10] Guests introduced.
[2:15] The Facebook stock weather report. First hint of bankers' panic.
[3:20] Who's making money on this stock today?
[4:00] What does it mean for retail investors when a stock rises on the first day?
[4:30] How do Internet stocks generally do right after IPO?
[5:45] Why is the Facebook IPO such a benchmark deal?
[6:45] What's wrong with a stock that doesn't pop up when it goes public?
[9:00] Andy explains why stock pops are valuable marketing events.
[10:00] How hands-on is CEO Mark Zuckerberg in dealing with financial minutiae?
[11:30] How will Facebook change, now that it's public?
[12:40] Why did Zynga stock crash when Facebook opened?
[13:45] How do you manage newly rich employees at a company like Facebook?
[17:30] And now we're going to see a lot of Facebook money funneled into new tech startups, right?
[19:30] How will Facebook tackle the mobile imperative?
[20:45] How about global growth? Are all users actually consumers?
[22:00] Andy discusses the power of Facebook's log-in system, Facebook Connect.
[23:00] Finally: How can Facebook improve its advertising business?
[23:45] Is Facebook a truly disruptive business?
[24:30] Jill's stock advice vis-a-vis Facebook: Chill out.
[25:30] Wrapping up: the panelists pitch their day jobs.