Forum Moderators: rogerd
Facebook is replacing its chief financial officer, Gideon Yu.Facebook spokesman Larry Yu confirmed to BusinessWeek that CFO Yu will be leaving the company. Now the big questions are: Why is he out? And who will replace him?
"Gideon has played an important role in helping us achieve our financial success, building a strong finance team, and establishing the core financial operations of our company," said Facebook in its statement.Over the last two years, Facebook has lost a number of talented executives, an unusual trend for such a hot startup. Among those who have left are Matt Cohler, vice-president of product management; Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, co-founders; Adam D'Angelo, chief technology officer; Owen Van Natta, chief operating officer; Jeff Hammerbacher, engineering manager; and Benjamin Ling, platform director.
Facebook's CFO Exits: Enter, the Questions [businessweek.com]
[edited by: Tastatura at 6:22 am (utc) on April 1, 2009]
You look at figures like that and ask yourself how much bloat is there in the business to not be able to weather an economic downturn. If I can monotize effectively a website with 20 pages, why can't they do it with their users!
Because the audience is most likely completely different. People don't go to Facebook to have advertisements or products thrown at them. If your site sells a product or service that you can offer, then it makes sense that you can monetize it because people actually find your site when they're looking for it.
I've said it before and I'l say it again. The CEO should be replaced. There's absolutely no doubt that Mark has done great things, but taking a leaf from the Sergey and Larry book is what he should do... get an executive in there with plenty of tech experience. Mark can still remain the idea guy, but there needs to be a CEO with more execution experience than Mark.
FB, attempt to drive demand down the long tail of a network by attempting to grow the size of its users base. If the network does not grow, long tail dynamics fade. Others try a subscription model and incentives to drive down the costs of network expansion.
In the end we'll see a paid subscription for FB...just you wait:)
Having a great site doesn't always make it profitable.
Nobody thinks "I'll check out facebook" when they get the urge to spend a dollar now do they.
Paid subscriptions, paid advanced features or a facebook store are on the horizon... else bankruptcy will be imo.
Facebook has only one chance of survival, being absorbed by a big player with deep pockets, and by that I mean MS or G. And indeed Mark should step down, he makes the company look like a bunch of clowns.
I couldn't agree more about being absorbed. It's their only hope.
Paid subscriptions on FB will not work. Someone will come along with another free tool, just as good or better. Besides I can't think of one thing I'd pay FB for that isn't already availabe for free.
They should have taken the $1 - $5 billion offer, or whatever it was when they had the chance. Now they face the possiblity of being swallowed by the economic tsunami.
Actually, I think it has more to do with the fact that Social Media Networks (SMNs) revenue generation models are more schizophrenic than they are carefully thought out.
I echo this sentiment completely. I don't know how many times I've wondered aloud at the fact that MySpace knows I'm a guy, and could easily read my cookie information, but instead chooses to show me a picture of a guy with a link to a dating site. I wonder how many times a mistargeted ad is fired over the course of a day that could otherwise generate revenue if targeted properly.
