Sep 29, 2010

No IPO Till 2012: Facebook Director, Peter Thiel

http://gigaom.com/2010/09/27/no-ipo-till-2012-facebook-director-peter-thiel/
Despite a lot of talk about a Facebook initial public offering, early investor and director Peter Thiel says dont count on it up until 2012. He only reaffirmed what Facebook has been saying all along:no plans for an IPO anytime soon. At an event today, he pointed out that the company is worth over $30 billion.Thiel, who was extremely critical of the regulatory environment, was speaking to Fox Business about what comes next for technology.
Of course, we cant take that for an answer. After all, theres widespread belief in Silicon Valley that Mark Zuckerberg is going to lead us to the promised land. Thiel said the company is taking a cue from Google and will wait. Not surprisingly, he was also critical of the movie, The Social Network, but he added that it might help send the important message: Its cool to build great companies in America.
Thiel thinks there are a lot of potential opportunities for technology over next few decades. Technology is a story of two sectors: computers, which was left unregulated and energy and drugs where progress is very slow. Thiel rightly points out that the speed of progress has slowed. U.S. can be a frontier country in doing new things in new industries.
Watch the latest video at video.foxbusiness.com
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