Since it depends whom you ask, the Motley Fool asks three Web industry critics what they think about Facebook's post-Microsoft $15 billion valuation. The first, Anders Bylund, says Facebook would
be "worthless" as a public stock because the company is spending more than it's making. For example, the CEO Mark Zuckerberg is putting $200 million behind data center upgrades and new hires next
year, when the company only made $150 million total last year.
Fool critic Rick Aristotle Munarriz pegs Facebook's value at $3 billion, though he says that sum could fall by half if
growth stalls this year. Google, for example, trades at roughly 10 times trailing revenue, says Munarriz. By the same logic, Facebook, at $150 million in 2007, would be valued at $1.5 billion, though
he doubles that figure because traffic continues to grow and new innovations like the open platform haven't yet contributed substantially to the company's bottom line.
Tim Beyers,
the third critic, says that $15 billion is "a walk in the park," because Facebook has become more than a social network. Beyers calls it a true portal, in the way that Yahoo meant to be. Beyers and
says that as more programs and services that scale are developed, Facebook will morph into "a digital landlord."
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