Everything You Need to Know About Facebook's IPO

Rebecca Greenfield

Now that Facebook's finished its first day on the market, it's time to figure out what it all means. It ended the day at a price of $38.23 per share, almost exactly where it started the morning at $38 per share, does that mean today basically didn't happen? No. As you can see over at our live blog, it was an eventful day, which saw the stock peak at $45 per share, amid tech glitches and a resounding meh from the Internet. What does this mean for Facebook? America? The Internet? Me? You? Let's find out. 

RELATED: The Limits of the Facebook Economy

Tell me more about this $38 stock price.

RELATED: How Many More Banks Does Facebook Need for Its IPO?

  • This was unexpected, as The Next Web's Alex Wilhelm points out, stocks should not trade flat on their first days. 

  • But it actually could have been worse, as The Guardian's Heidi Moore explains, it didn't go below $38 because the underwriters bought up shares during the debut, to keep the price up. 

  • We know, that sounds shady. The Atlantic's Alexis Madrigal agrees. 

So, Facebook's debut was a total failure then?

RELATED: We Should Have Known About Facebook's Shady IPO

  • Well, a pop, like what happened to Groupon, might have been worse, notes AllThingsD's John Paczkowski, who thinks this means the stock got priced just right. 

  • Fortune's Dan Primack agrees, explaining that this is not a catastrophe. He even calls the price perfect.

  • Also, some are attributing the drop to technical glitches, rather than market expectation, explains Reuters's Alexei Oreskovic.

  • And the company did set one record. The 500 million shares traded set a record, says The Next Web's Matthew Panzarino. 

Was it that social media bubble thing?

RELATED: Suddenly, Facebook's Advertising Problem Is a Problem

  • Yup. At least that's what The Guardian's Heidi Moore thinks. 

  • Plus, other social media stock, like Zynga and LinkedIn, had a bad day, notes Reuters's Alastair Barr. 

  • And then there's this scary quote: "The golden age of Silicon valley is over and we're dancing on its grave," Steve Blank, a professor at Berkeley and Stanford and serial entrepreneur from Silicon Valley, told The Atlantic's Derek Thompson. 

This is depressing. At least tell me somebody got rich.

RELATED: Mark Zuckerberg Isn't CEO Enough for Facebook's IPO

  • Yes. Thanks to this fun Wall Street Journal Wealth-O-Meter, we see Mark Zuckerberg ended the day at $19.8 billion.  (Holy god, that is so much money.) 

  • Yes it is! Bloomberg says it makes Zuck richer than the Google Founders. 

  • Others benefited too, though. BuzzFeed has a rundown complete with clip-art visualizations of people Facebook who got rich today.

  • And the New York Times' Quentin Hardy reminds us of all the Facebook peons who made smaller fortunes this afternoon. 

Enough with the numbers. What does this all mean for Facebook's future?

  • Facebook moved too quickly, suggests Bits Blog's Nick Bilton, who thinks it will degrade as it infringes user privacy.

  • Plus, to continue making money and grow it will have to be a different, worse company. That's what we think. It's also what Gizmodo's Mat Honan thinks. 

  • The Atlantic's Alexis Madrigal isn't quite sure, but he gives us eight insightful thoughts ranging from the new millionaires to our culture of sharing.