Facebook is a social network service and website launched in February 2004 that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. As of January 2011 Facebook has more than 600 million active users. Quantcast estimates Facebook has 135.1 million monthly unique U.S. visitors in October 2010. According to Social Media Today as of April 2010, it is estimated that 41.6% of the U.S. population has a Facebook account.
Facebook Worth: $47 billion
Mark Zuckerberg
Facebook has over 1,700 employees, and offices in 12 countries. Regarding Facebook ownership, Mark Zuckerberg owns 24% of the company, Accel Partners owns 10%, Digital Sky Technologies owns 10%, Dustin Moskovitz owns 6%, Eduardo Saverin owns 5%, Sean Parker owns 4%, Peter Thiel owns 3%, Greylock Partners and Meritech Capital Partners own between 1 to 2% each, Microsoft owns 1.3%, Li Ka-shing owns 0.75%, the Interpublic Group owns less than 0.5%, a small group of current and former employees and celebrities own less than 1% each, including Matt Cohler, Jeff Rothschild, Adam D’Angelo, Chris Hughes, and Owen Van Natta, while Reid Hoffman and Mark Pincus have sizable holdings of the company, and the remaining 30% or so are owned by employees, an undisclosed number of celebrities, and outside investors. Adam D’Angelo, chief technology officer and friend of Zuckerberg, resigned in May 2008. Reports claimed that he and Zuckerberg began quarreling, and that he was no longer interested in partial ownership of the company.
| Year | Revenue | Growth |
|---|---|---|
| 2006 | $52 | — |
| 2007 | $150 | 188% |
| 2008 | $280 | 87% |
| 2009 | $775 | 177% |
| 2010 | $2,000 | 158% |
On November 15, 2010, Facebook announced it had acquired FB.com from the American Farm Bureau Federation for an undisclosed amount. On January 11, 2011, the Farm Bureau disclosed 8.5 million in “domain sales income”, making the acquisition of FB.com one of the ten highest domain sales in history.
