As expected, Facebook filed for its initial public offering today and the numbers are big: The securities filing places the social network's value somewhere between $75 billion and $100 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal this afternoon. That means the young company should debut well above Google's 2004 valuation of $23 billion — a figure that has held the record for the highest U.S. Internet IPO ever since.
The company has yet to disclose exactly how many shares it intends to offer, but the filing states that Zuckerberg and Co. hope to raise $5 billion in the offering. WSJ, meanwhile, notes that figure could go up to $10 billion by the time the company goes public in the spring.
In terms of revenue numbers, Facebook has been growing in the past year. 2011 saw $3.71 billion in revenue for the company — up from $1.97 billion in 2010, but still short of estimates made by outside analysts. Addressing potential shareholders, CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained that the social network he famously built in his dorm room at Harvard will focus on products over revenue. "We don't build services to make money; we make money to build better services," Zuckerberg wrote. "These days I think more and more people want to use services from companies that believe in something beyond simply maximizing profits." To that end, the WSJ explains Facebook is, in fact, profitable at this point. The company boasted $1 billion in profits in 2011 — a 65% increase from 2010.
Zuckerberg himself stands to make over $28 billion if the company's value hits the high end. The CEO made a $1.5 million salary last year, but like Steve Jobs before him, Zuckerberg will only be taking a $1 salary starting in 2013.
Morgan Stanley will lead the offering of the newly minted "FB" stock, Forbes reports. No word yet on whether Facebook will debut on the Nasdaq, where Groupon debuted, or if the social network will head to the New York Stock Exchange, where LinkedIn had some luck early on.
Facebook's initial public offering follows the recent wave of silicon valley IPOs like Zynga, LinkedIn, and Yelp. For the nerds, you can find all the SEC paperwork right here.
