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Is Facebook facing talent drain post IPO?

Social networking giant Facebook’s IPO has pretty much been an unequivocal disaster. The company has seen its stock plummet despite meeting analyst revenue expectations, and reports are coming in that the social network is losing high-level executives at an alarming rate. Facebook has confirmed that four of its high-ranking managers are leaving the company. 
 
The news that four high-level executives are leaving is adding fuel to the speculation fire that Facebook is going to suffer the loss of significant talent after its IPO. The four high-level managers that are leaving Facebook include director of platform partnerships Ethan Beard, platform marketing director Kate Mitic, mobile platform marketing manager Jonathan Matus, and design manager Ben Blumenfeld. They all resigned from the company in the last week.
 
While Facebook offered no official comment on the departure of the four executives other than noting that they had left, each did offer blog posts with more detail. Overall, the blog posts indicated that the four executives enjoyed working for Facebook, but were looking for new and more exciting challenges.

 
Beard didn't specify what he intended to do post Facebook. Mitic noted that she plans to work on a mobile startup company that she would launch in Palo Alto, California. Matus noted that he decided to leave Facebook to explore new directions in entrepreneurial ideas. Blumenfeld wrote that he was moving on to the Designer Fund.
 
It remains to be seen if the departure of four high-level managers one-week indicates a larger overall problem at Facebook. If the company continues to face the loss of key employees, changes will need to be made to retain important workers.
 
On a more light-hearted note, a recent report suggested that people who are on Facebook view those two don't have Facebook profiles as suspicious.

Source: Computer World


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lol
By Motoman on 8/13/2012 10:43:42 AM , Rating: 5
quote:
On a more light-hearted note, a recent report suggested that people who are on Facebook view those two don't have Facebook profiles as suspicious.


...and those who aren't on Facebook view those who do have Facebook profiles as vapid.




RE: lol
By Reclaimer77 on 8/13/12, Rating: -1
RE: lol
By kattanna on 8/13/2012 12:48:02 PM , Rating: 5
LOL

as someone who doesnt have a facebook page I know it makes me the odd person out.

thankfully me and the misses have been together for over 18 years now so I dont have to deal with todays dating scene..because man that would suck.


RE: lol
By Samus on 8/14/2012 2:18:59 AM , Rating: 2
My wife a facebook and I let her manage my social life for me. It's great.


RE: lol
By bupkus on 8/13/2012 1:02:36 PM , Rating: 5
Maybe you shouldn't have told her your DT ID.


RE: lol
By dark matter on 8/13/2012 3:50:11 PM , Rating: 2
You should lower your expectations perhaps?


RE: lol
By Reclaimer77 on 8/13/2012 4:03:15 PM , Rating: 1
Well like my favorite T-shirt says "If I don't meet your standards, LOWER THEM"

lol but that was honestly just a joke about FB and hitting on girls. I'm happily enslaved to a serious gf. But self-deprecation is fun :)


RE: lol
By EricMartello on 8/14/2012 12:11:47 AM , Rating: 2
Monogamy?! What are you one of them christian liberal hippie radicals that votes Obama?


RE: lol
By Adam M on 8/13/2012 7:48:31 PM , Rating: 2
I hope this is a sign of Facebook beginning to circle the drain. You know all of those jokes about Myspace? You will be able to insert Facebook in place of Myspace with in a few years. You should look at someone who doesn't have a Facebook page as suspicious... they must know something you don't.


IPO
By DrApop on 8/13/2012 12:46:58 PM , Rating: 3
The facebook IPO was about 2-3 years late IMO. I think they have plateaued. Plus, it seems that Facebook has been making so many changes that the users aren't happy with...why would a company do that to their major patron?




RE: IPO
By DNAgent on 8/13/2012 12:57:12 PM , Rating: 5
...because the users aren't the patron...they are the PRODUCT.


RE: IPO
By MrBlastman on 8/13/2012 1:00:36 PM , Rating: 3
Nah, they did the typical Wall Street IPO shuffle:

IPO at the top, get all your money and RUN!

At least, this has been the ongoing theme for the last year. The only people making money are the original insiders and the clearinghouses.

Now, if they were smarter, they might have IPO'd when the movie was hot and seen a small pop. Lately, though, the number of IPOs that I have looked that which have been appealing is nauseatingly small (i.e. practically nil).


Quite simple
By FITCamaro on 8/13/2012 10:44:24 AM , Rating: 2
They've largely done what they can do to grow the site. People aren't willing to pay for it either.




RE: Quite simple
By Uncle on 8/13/2012 12:23:49 PM , Rating: 2
What I see happening and why FB will fail is the Corporatizing of the site. You can't stick Corporate mentality into every site on the internet especially a social site, because Corporations and the rest of the world don't think along the same lines. Corporations will continue to have failure as long as they don't learn from their past mistakes. The people running them are to egotistical to admit to that. Sometimes smaller IS better.


RE: Quite simple
By MrBungle123 on 8/13/2012 12:50:21 PM , Rating: 2
Facebook's problem is that it doesn't actually do anything useful. Sure you can post pics or status updates but really its just an easier way to do what you might otherwise do by mass texting your friends.

If they're smart they'll use the money they got in thier IPO and buy out another company that produces a product with some actual value before they turn into myspace 2.0.


RE: Quite simple
By wordsworm on 8/13/2012 6:15:46 PM , Rating: 2
I don't agree. Facebook serves the purpose of keeping circles of people in communication with each other who would normally not. I get to see photos of my nephew, niece, sister, and estranged friends. I wish FB had been around 10 years ago. If it had been, I wouldn't have lost contact with so many friends in Montreal. But it has helped me reestablish contact with many of them. Many of them I wouldn't go to the expense (time or money) to maintain as that would simply take too much time as there are simply too many people. When I do go to Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Korea, Indonesia, India, etc., I can easily reconnect with those friends thanks to FB.

FB's problem, from an investor's perspective, is where to imagine it can go next. It already has a huge percentage of the online audience. One way in which it could grow is through phones. There are rumours abounding about a Facebook phone. Smart phones can evolve, and FB might be an interesting company to watch to see how they can influence the evolution of the device and grow as a company.


circular
By Nortel on 8/13/2012 10:47:12 AM , Rating: 5
Rewind 10 years. "OMG Myspace is sooooo amazing, you've like totally gotta be on this, it's so great!"

Back to today. "went to the store, saw some nice chairs. Like this post if you like chairs too".

Every person I know that was checking FB daily is done with FB. It was a gimmick and its time in the sun is fading. Shady tactics, security issues and lackluster 'updates' to the site haven't helped FB's image either.




RE: circular
By inperfectdarkness on 8/13/2012 5:01:13 PM , Rating: 2
yep. just another example of social-psychology in play. just like every meme that erupts from the butt-crack of /b/. when advertisement for major companies start using words like "epic", those words are no longer "hip" for the hipsters.

same thing applies when every big corporation from fox news to hyundai have some form of facebook presence.

what's ironic is that even though i deleted my FB account 2 years ago, i still have a myspace account from 6+ years ago. granted, i never use it anymore...but i never felt like i had to be fluent in DERP in order to decipher tom's privacy settings.


Incisive Reporting
By Exirtis on 8/13/2012 2:45:08 PM , Rating: 2
"...pretty much been an unequivocal disaster."

Way to more-or-less go out on a limb there.




RE: Incisive Reporting
By semiconshawn on 8/13/2012 3:15:24 PM , Rating: 2
It's like that sometimes always around here.


Why not ?
By kilkennycat on 8/13/2012 12:37:28 PM , Rating: 3
Now that these execs have cashed out their winnings, why not look at new opportunities? Must be pretty boring working for Facebook now. More of the same-old, now with the additional need to make money... the fun and free-wheeling days are over. More power to their collective elbows....




Lockup period ending Thursday
By WinstonSmith on 8/14/2012 10:40:17 AM , Rating: 3
Insiders who already own Facebook shares were prevented from selling their shares until 90 days after the IPO. That lockup period ends this Thursday and over the coming nine months, about 1.91 billion shares will be freed up, compared with fewer than 500 million now available for trading. This will likely put further downward pressure on the stock price.




reason why they left
By Ammohunt on 8/13/2012 2:26:28 PM , Rating: 2
Because the company is still run by an immature snot nosed kid.




Wonder what they did?
By Dug on 8/13/2012 3:30:08 PM , Rating: 2
Besides the design manager who should of been fired anyway.
These are just bullcrap jobs anyway.

Director of platform partnerships, "Would you like Facebook on your platform?" Yes. Job done.

Platform marketing director. "Place Facebook icon on platform. Job done.

Mobile platform marketing manager.
Really?




this so-called "disaster"
By grant3 on 8/13/2012 3:32:51 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Social networking giant Facebook’s IPO has pretty much been an unequivocal disaster.


The IPO clearly succeeded at accomplishing its purpose, i.e., to obtain the maximum amount of capital in exchange for the least amount of equity.

Only an idiot thinks a company "did well" when an IPO jumps in value right after the stock is sold: that just proves the company gave away a bunch of cash to bankers' insider friends.

Maybe Shane should stick to tech, and leave finance alone.




By dark matter on 8/13/2012 3:55:48 PM , Rating: 2
Now that facebook has to answer to shareholders, I imagine the high level executives that have left simply couldn't stand having their job changed from being mainly creative output to really mundane spreadsheet, form filling, box ticking and having to justify everything they do.

You see this often happen with smaller companies as they grow into larger companies. A lot of the creative talent that enjoyed the dynamism of a smaller company simply are not willing to become a faceless drone in a larger company.

Most likely internally facebook is stagnating, and a lot of friction over the proposals to monetize the user base. Perhaps they are wise to jump now rather than have the stigma of working for a failed company in the one possible future.

(ie, get out whilst the going is good)




By Beenthere on 8/13/2012 4:56:49 PM , Rating: 2
This Fad will run it's course and dye off like the plague it is.




By chromal on 8/14/2012 1:22:30 PM , Rating: 2
What do you call the facebook stock you paid $35/share for a few months ago and is now worth $20.76/share?

Overvalued.

Here's hoping for junk stock status within the year.




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