What is Digg?87 Comments
- HeavyWave, on 05/17/2009, -2/+79Can Digg remove the annoying Microsoft ad with sound please? It just goes on when you hover your mouse and then you start freaking out because you don't expect it to be coming from an ad. Ads like that make me want to install AdBlock.
- DontHassleHoff, on 05/17/2009, -1/+41I'm already annoyed and only at the second paragraph...
"...hundreds of employees have now toiled two years, and some have worked three to five years"
like they're mining salt as slaves or something. I'm sure they get paid a fair wage and two or three years hardly makes a career where you deserve to cash in. - jynweythek, on 05/17/2009, -2/+38I'm an idiot, can someone please explain why they are doing this?
- inactive, on 05/17/2009, -3/+32Well, "Facebook" isn't doing this - upper management is. I smell a rat.
- borez, on 05/17/2009, -3/+29I'm not being funny, but if I worked for Facebook and I'd heard they were raising money to buy my shares back... then I would keep hold of them like my life depended on it.
And if any Facebook employee happens to be reading this, if you sell... you're in danger of becoming the stupidest person on the face of this planet. Period. - borez, on 05/17/2009, -3/+23Adblock plus.
- thecheatah, on 05/17/2009, -1/+21there are ads on digg?
Must have had ad block before I started using digg... - ralphthemagi, on 05/17/2009, -2/+22If I understand correctly, the end goal here is to increase the number of shares that Facebook as a company retains, so that they can get a higher valuation. If they can get employees to sell the share for less than they are worth, they can try to get more investment (or liquidate via acquisition) at a higher valuation.
- kmb1794, on 05/17/2009, -1/+19Facebook employees, if you're reading this...don't sell.
- Shakermaker, on 05/17/2009, -3/+21LOL - you still see ads? You use Firefox but don't use ABP?
You sir, fail at the Internets. - Lionhart, on 05/17/2009, -0/+16I'd rather sell my shares for guaranteed millions than put my trusts in a company without even a good profit model and hope for higher returns later.
- piieerrrree, on 05/17/2009, -3/+18Kyan: wrong in either situation.
- AlbinoRaven, on 05/17/2009, -2/+15"But I produced 3 gigs of data today boss, my fingers are tired."
"Get back to your carriage return farm coder!"
//did not admit 3 gigs was source back up to svn... - AlbinoRaven, on 05/17/2009, -1/+14You worked at Microsoft in the 90s too?
- borez, on 05/17/2009, -1/+12" this request is coming from the employees." Probably because the management have planted the seeds.
Sorry, but I smell shenanigans. Never trust anybody when it comes to money, and trust people even less when it comes to piles of money. - spudsstuff, on 05/17/2009, -18/+29Facebook are up to no good
- sonofabiscuit, on 05/17/2009, -18/+28Just install it. I'm all for supporting Digg, but I don't think that arrogant prick Kevin Rose deserves anymore money.
- Skwerl, on 05/17/2009, -0/+9Ya think? If the ads are invasive enough that I feel the need to block them, they shouldn't have beent here in the first place.
- rnawky, on 05/17/2009, -19/+27Facebook *is* up to no good.
Use is when referring to a single entity.
Use are when referring to a group of people.
"Microsoft is up to no good"
"AIG Executives are up to no good" - AlbinoRaven, on 05/17/2009, -2/+10So the employees can't complain as shareholders when they sell the company to Asian investors and lose their jobs. Shareholder > employee
Have enough employees as shareholders and the shareholders can change management (aka owners) - Eorster, on 05/17/2009, -3/+10"We’re hearing the final part of the deal is being sold to new Asian investors." LOL. Suckers.
- CasualNinja, on 05/17/2009, -0/+7Enough is Enough! I've had it with these motherfarking Ads on this Motherfarking Page!
- MOJIRA, on 05/17/2009, -0/+7Wiki says Facebook has 700 employees; let's say they all have equal share and all cash out to the tune of 150 mil collectively (all of these assumptions are incorrect I'm sure), but it would be $214,285.71 for each person.
200 grand is nice, but if you hold out a couple more years and cash out with 10x that would be even better. - MKD89, on 05/17/2009, -1/+8And for some reason you are sure Facebook's value will increase 10 fold in " a couple more years"?
- artwithbyte, on 05/17/2009, -5/+11Long time employees can make big cash without an IPO. That's a bit scummy. Facebook is pulling a Bernie Madoff on new investors.
"Increasingly, some have become restless, and would like to cash in on the huge value they’ve created" - Exactly what value have they created? - inactive, on 05/17/2009, -8/+13 what happened to the snorg t-shirt girl ads
- popfrogs2, on 05/18/2009, -0/+5"Exactly what value have they created?"
Whatever value day one employees pour into an upstart and hopefully cash in on someday. Maybe some database guys want a booster check or to retire early, or to go start another venture, who knows. But the fact that upper management is pushing this tells you that something isn't right at Facebook. Either it's a buyback-to-sell or the top rats are about to jump ship and want to cash out first. - 3The3Dude3, on 05/17/2009, -1/+6You can have as many shares as the BOD is willing to agree upon. They don't affect the valuation of a company. The valuation divided by the number of shares affects the share price. The agenda is to retain veteran employees (which does affect valuation) by giving them the option to either take a nice payout now, which is guaranteed, or let it ride at the chance of getting a ridiculous one down the road (but with the risk of getting nothing if the company fails).
- moxley, on 05/17/2009, -1/+5I know people are thinking "hey, those emplyees should hold on to those shares," but with how the economy has been going it is far from certain that those shares will be worth jack ***** in a few years, let alone that the stock market and US ecomony won't have crashed by then.
You never know what is going to happen of course, but also - being able to sign some papers and have hundreds of thousands of dollars handed over is something that is hard to put off for an uncertain future.
I speak from experience. I worked for CDNOW.com during the dotcom boom years and had a fairly substanstial amount of employee shares. Thinking that they'd go up I watched them fluctuate and get up to around $30 per share - when they company was bought out we were give $3 per share...I WISH I had sold when I was first vested as I would have made 10 times what I (and many, many others) did. - blacklilyninja, on 05/18/2009, -0/+4... and if you don't sell it back...you are fired!
memories of tech tv - shark72, on 05/17/2009, -0/+4Employees typically got "several thousand" shares. If the buyback is at $10, then a typical cash-out will be between $50K and $100K.
That's not enough to pay off a mortgage in California. In fact, it's not enough for a down payment for lots of property in the Bay Area.
It's about enough to pay off one's student loans and perhaps buy a new car. I wouldn't quit over that. - mynameisdi, on 05/17/2009, -1/+5I'd cash, tell Zuckie to go ***** himself, and open up a business that actually has a BUSINESS model.
- MOJIRA, on 05/17/2009, -1/+4Unless of course this is reverse psychology to get the employees to stop complaining about wanting to sell their shares and cash out.
I imagine a few of them want to jump ship before it gets near any icebergs. Facebook is doing well, but I wonder how long it can last. - phatfiend, on 05/17/2009, -0/+3If I were an employee I would be selling. The problem with tech stocks especially is that valuation of a company such as facebook is almost impossible. Cash out at your huge gains and invest in a more predictable company. Somtimes stocks like this can soar and when the valuation of the company is finally realized it is much less than expected and many people lose money.
- bonofosho, on 05/17/2009, -1/+4@ Albinoraven: You would put your money in Twitter? Somehow, I lost all faith in your market know-how when you said that. Honestly, for every person that I know who uses twitter, I know 20 who still say "why the hell would I ever use twitter?" Twitter is completely overhyped and if it could pull its head out of its own ass, im sure it would see that its a quickly passing fad.
- AlbinoRaven, on 05/17/2009, -1/+4True,
Otherwise the snake pit is opened up for management to print more junk shares to water down the original pool of issued shares which throw valuation out the window. Only way to force a majority voting block is to buy back shares.
If Facebook did go public I would be one of the first to line up to short it into the ground. The company has had it's day in the sun, the new shiny POS is twitter. The irony is I would be using Twitter to arrange a short on twitter with other individual traders. - FUUUUUUUUUUUUUU, on 05/18/2009, -0/+3Started making trouble in your neighborhood?
- MOJIRA, on 05/17/2009, -0/+3No, I divided the 150 million that Facebook is raising in order to buy out their 700 employees. Not the billions Facebook is valued at.
- Rantus, on 06/11/2009, -0/+3Suckerberg is at it again. I never liked that arrogant little creep or his crappy website. They're buying back shares to value up the company in order to go public and make more money. But facebook has never really made any money (in the "traditional" sense), it's the poster child for web 2.0 failure, an overvalued behemoth that's turning into an unmanageable colossus that's going to start sucking up more cash than it already does just to stay afloat.
This is another Ponzi scheme, and the guys who have been there since the start up are going to jump at the chance to sell their shares because they know that after the IPO its only a matter of time before the whole thing tanks into unsustainable mediocrity. How are they going to make money then? I hope none of you out there gave them too much info because its all going up for sale.
Screw Faceplant and its slimy creator Suckerberg. He's a billionaire for doing what?
Suckers. - consciousman, on 05/19/2009, -0/+2very interesting...
- Krissam, on 05/17/2009, -0/+2I am
You are
He/She/It is
We are
You are
They are - pw378, on 05/18/2009, -0/+2illogical, as both housing and stocks are depressed. Buying a house that is down 30% with stock that is down 50% isn't a brilliant plan. Also, in a recovery, stocks will rebound much faster than housing, so wait until stocks jump back up, then buy the house at only a 15% down.
- rollin03, on 05/17/2009, -2/+4MERGER
- Jaq524, on 05/17/2009, -2/+4The article mentions that this plan is in place *because* employees desire greater liquidity and want to sell. I'm sure Facebook would love to keep all that cash and have their employees hold on to the shares, but this request is coming from the employees.
- Rantus, on 06/11/2009, -0/+2As about as much as I am of everyone who wins the lottery or starts a successful company, the jealously is just writhing in me...
In other words, that was a stupid question.
Facebook is a scam, and it always was, so to be jealous of him would be like being jealous of a con man who made a lot of cash. It's about his lack of ethics, and people's stupid ideas about the way things are right now. - inactive, on 05/17/2009, -0/+2nice. nice
- AlbinoRaven, on 05/20/2009, -0/+1@bono...
I said I would use Twitter to short twitter. I work with other traders en mass using twitter to organize a short. After the tweet goes through we move the party to an private IRC channel and the leaders on the channel call the groups to organize a push on the stock in question into a short sell position.
Whether or not I own the stock is irrelevant, the fact is they have been discussing going public. It would make for an awesome short and it's easier to co-ordinate an attack on a stock with 600 guys my sending a message with twitter where we are meeting.
Otherwise, Facebook/Myspace/Twitter are all pieces of crap that honestly aren't worth piss in a bucket and no matter what moron believes what their "valuation" is. - jemka, on 05/18/2009, -0/+1Very helpful Facebook info. Thanks!
- KibibyteBrain, on 05/17/2009, -0/+1This is actually a pretty confusing issue in the English Language. It has nothing to do with the dialect. See here for more details: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/plurals.htm ... . Essentially, some singular names of multipart entities agree with plural verbs, and others do not.
- hansrodtang, on 05/19/2009, -0/+1If that was the goal he is too late, he already refused to sell for 1 billion dollars.
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