Northern, WI 5/1/12 (StreetBeat) -- Social networking goliath Facebook (FB — pending) announced today that it would "encourage" users to advertise their organ donor status on their home page. While not legally binding, advocates hope the initiative will lead users to register themselves as official organ donors the next time they renew their driver's licenses.According to Organdonor.gov, more than 114,000 people are waiting for an organ donation, 18 of whom die every day. It's unquestionably a good cause, but with Facebook set to raise more than $10 billion, it's hard not to take a somewhat jaded view of the announcement.
In the attached video, Breakout welcomes our Daily Ticker colleague Henry Blodget to discuss Facebook and the possible motives behind founder Mark Zuckerberg's announcement.
Blodget says the project itself is unambiguously about the social good, but it's also something of a warning, or at least a reminder, to would-be Facebook shareholders. As Zuckerberg wrote in history's most famous S-1 filing, Facebook serves a social, not a financial, mission.
"That is the opposite of most companies," says Blodget. "That letter is really a warning to shareholders that Zuckerberg is going to be doing the social mission thing—not the business." Public company or not, "Facebook is still a Mark Zuckerberg production."
Zuckerberg's total control is a mixed bag for shareholders. Citing Amazon, where Jeff Bezos has a similar power, Blodget says it's no coincidence Amazon was one of only a handful of companies to survive the dot-com era. With Bezos running Amazon in accordance with his vision rather than that of Wall Street, he was able to steer the company away from the trap of short-term thinking. (Note: Jeff Macke owns shares of Amazon and wrote about the company last week.)
If you're a long-term shareholder, by which Blodget means five to 10 years, "you can't ask for a better ownership structure," according to Blodget. Zuckerberg has clearly proven "he's the right guy for the job."
The timing of the initiative, coming as it does on the eve of the IPO, may be a PR stunt with a twist. Zuckerberg could very well be hitting the rounds not to hype the stock but to demonstrate one final time that he's not going to be taking his head out of the sand for publicity, to talk up the company, or for any reasons other than his own social agenda.
Shareholders looking to ride along with the enigmatic Zuckerberg and his Facebook are going to be welcomed aboard once the company goes public. If they don't like the direction Zuckerberg takes the company, they can't say they haven't been warned.
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