— Ch. 1 · Founding And Early Growth —
Meta Platforms.
~8 min read · Ch. 1 of 6
The Facebook logo appeared on a billboard welcoming the company to Nasdaq in 2012. This moment marked the end of a four-year journey that began when Mark Zuckerberg established TheFacebook, Inc. in 2004. The initial public offering filed on the 1st of January 2012, sought to raise $5 billion while boasting 845 million monthly active users. Underwriters valued shares at $38 each, creating a $104 billion valuation for the newly public entity. Trading delays on May 18 forced underwriters to buy back shares to support the price after technical problems struck the exchange. By the closing bell, shares sat at $38.23, just $0.23 above the IPO price and down from opening values. The stock set a new record for trading volume during an IPO, yet ended its first full week at $31.91, a decline of 16.5 percent. Regulators from Wall Street's Financial Industry Regulatory Authority launched investigations into whether banks had improperly shared information with select clients. Massachusetts Secretary of State William F. Galvin subpoenaed Morgan Stanley over these same issues. Investors filed lawsuits claiming more than $2.5 billion in losses due to the IPO performance. Bloomberg estimated retail investors lost approximately $630 million since the debut. S&P Global Ratings added Facebook to its S&P 500 index on the 21st of December 2013. Zuckerberg retained 22% of total shares and 57% of voting power after the offering. On the 2nd of May 2014, he announced a shift from the motto Move fast and break things to Move fast with stable infrastructure.
The Metaverse Pivot
Oculus lead Jason Rubin sent his 50-page vision document titled The Metaverse to Facebook leadership in 2018. Rubin acknowledged that virtual reality business had not caught on despite hundreds of millions spent on content for early adopters. He urged the company to execute fast and invest heavily to shut out HTC, Apple, Google and other competitors in the VR space. News emerged on the 21st of October 2021 about Facebook's plan to rebrand following intense scrutiny and damaging whistleblower leaks. Mark Zuckerberg discussed ongoing criticism during the Q3 2021 earnings call on October 25 without mentioning the name change initially. The metaverse vision and name change from Facebook, Inc. to Meta Platforms was introduced at Facebook Connect on the 28th of October 2021. Meta had been registered as a trademark in the United States in 2018 by a Canadian company providing big data analysis of scientific literature. This company was acquired in 2017 by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative established by Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan. Following the announcement, CZI decided to deprioritize their earlier Meta project and transfer rights to Meta Platforms. The previous project ended in 2022. In May 2019, Facebook founded Libra Networks reportedly to develop their own stablecoin cryptocurrency. Financial companies such as Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Uber supported the consortium expected to pool $10 million each. Libra was renamed Diem before being shut down and sold in January 2022 after backlash from Swiss government regulators. During the COVID-19 pandemic, online service usage grew globally with Zuckerberg predicting permanent acceleration. Facebook hired aggressively growing from 48,268 employees in March 2020 to more than 87,000 by September 2022.