VALUING FACEBOOK

-- By DavidKorvin - 15 Oct 2012

Introduction

I am currently taking a class at Columbia Law School titled “Investment Banking.” For our first major group assignment we had the task of attempting to value what Facebook would be worth in an initial public offering (IPO). While researching the company we learned that Facebook generates revenue from two sources: [1] advertisements, and [2] payments (fees associated with the purchase of virtual goods on a developer’s application).

One of my primary obligations during this assignment was to describe Facebook’s business model in detail, which required me to spend a lot of time reading Facebook’s prospectus and registration statement (S-1), while also closely examining its financial statements. Furthermore, Facebook constantly claims that its mission statement is “to make the world a more open and connected.”

While writing this report, neither I nor any of my group members ever mentioned Facebook’s relation with the United States government; however, in “Law in the Internet Society” we have spent a lot of time discussing how Facebook acts a surveillance mechanism for the American government. My question is the following: if Facebook plays a surveillance role for the government, how come this revenue stream is not accounted for or acknowledged for in any of Facebook’s public registration statements or financial exhibits? Additionally, if Facebook is not receiving money from the government, what is Facebook’s incentive in establishing and maintaining this relationship?

Relationship with the Government

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