| Whats interesting about this though is your average person doesn't have that perspective. These companies (most companies not just tech companies or just facebook) are largely black boxes to them. They aren't thinking about how there are lots of hardworking people at them who deserve to be rewarded for their work. I've been thinking a lot recently about this. How even myself I didn't really have a good perspective on how a company's stock price / ipo relates to them. But with facebook its different though. I've known about facebook since I joined it in 2006 as a senior in high school. And now I know people who work there. I even have a friend who works for Morgan Stanley. So now im in a unique position to really understand where these numbers come from and the value they do or don't represent. If you never learn that kind of stuff; either on your own, from others who have seen it, or don't have the benefit of the collective knowledge of a community like hacker news. All you would have is: "High stock price good, low stock price bad" And the rabbit hole is actually much deeper than that. Like in this instance even though the stock price didn't rise greatly it was actually good for the company. Because that's what an intial public offering is supposed to be about. A way for the company to raise capital. If the stock price doubles after that its all well and good but the company itself doesn't get to benefit from that aside from good press. And I think a lot of people keep taking for granted that facebook is not public now because it wants to be but because it has to be, but thats a whole other conversation |