Zeros and Ones: Facebook pie

Our time has come. We can all make a million dollars. But wait. A million dollars isn't cool. Know what is cool? A billion dollars. Even cooler than that? Five billion dollars.

Those five billion bucks will soon make their way toward Mark Zuckerberg and friends in California. Facebook recently filed for an initial public offering, commonly referred to as an IPO. If you're not a finance major you're probably asking yourself, "Self, what that hell is an IPO?" Don't worry. I Googled it. It's essentially a company's first stock offering to the public. So, you'll finally be able to own stock in Facebook. The company is starting small and selling a measly $5 billion in shares.

The things I could buy with five billion dollars. I could buy a billion burritos, and I'm willing to share. But let's face it — I don't think all the toilets in Montana could handle that. How about 41,237(ish) Maseratis? Want one? Take two. How will Facebook use the cash? The IPO paperwork states, "working capital and other general corporate purposes." IPO paperwork is thrilling stuff.

Now you may be wondering how to get yourself a slice of that delicious Facebook pie. Unfortunately, it's a dessert so rich it'll make you sick. The banks and their partners working with Facebook on the IPO get first dibs on the stock. They will likely take the majority of it. Banks aren't known to play fairly and share. After that, us common folk get a chance. But personally, my wallet feels noticeably lighter after buying a cup of coffee. Remember, we're in the same boat as the Sir Richard Bransons and the Mark Cubans of the world. If even they have to wait to buy stock, we have a snowball's chance in hell at becoming rich with Facebook stock.

But wait, Zuckerberg wouldn't just start selling off shares all willy-nilly. Someone has to be making a buck off this. Who are these lucky few? The people who currently own the social networking giant are set to score big. Number one on that list is the Facebook staff. They own about 30 percent with Zuckerberg not far behind owning 24 percent. Dustin Moskovitz, that dweeby dude writing code in "The Social Network," owns six percent. Sean Parker, widely recognized as Justin Timberlake's character, owns four percent. And Eduardo Saverin, co-founder of Facebook, owns five percent. Oh, and let us not forget Bono. U2's Africa-loving frontman owns 1.5 percent. These are the people who are walking into the Facebook offices rich and walking out richer.

So for the time being, skip the shares in Facebook — that is unless you have a Scrooge McDuck-style room full of gold coins to spare. Here at the Kaimin, we're scraping together a fund to invest in Kodak. 50 cents a share is more our style.

brady.moore@umontana.edu