Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg "Likes" Chan and Weds 1 day after IPO

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has ended a hectic week which saw his company valued at £106bn after a stock market flotation by getting married.

Zuckerberg has updated his relationship status to "married"

He wed his long-time girlfriend Priscilla Chan, 27, in a ceremony at his home in Palo Alto, California.

Chan also had a busy week, graduating from medical school on Monday, as Zuckerberg marked his 28th birthday.

The guests believed they were going to celebrate Chan's graduation - but found they were at a wedding instead.

The wedding ring, a "very simple ruby", was designed by Zuckerberg.

Nine years ago the pair met at Harvard, where Zuckerberg founded Facebook in 2004.

They later moved to California, where Facebook has its headquarters, and Chen studied at the medical school of the University of California, San Francisco.

On Monday, Zuckerberg turned 28 and Chan graduated from the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, where she'd studied pediatrics.

Then on Friday, Zuckerberg took his blue-and-white web behemoth public in one of the most anticipated stock offerings in Wall Street history.

The seemingly well-coordinated timing was largely a coincidence, the guest said. The wedding had been planned for months and the couple was waiting for Chan to finish medical school, but the date of the IPO was a "moving target" not known when the wedding was set.

Attendees, including Facebook's chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, were told after they arrived that they were not mere party guests but wedding guests.

"Everybody was shocked," the guest said.

The person would not discuss the names of others who attended to protect their privacy.

Ditching his trademark hoodie and sneakers, Zuckerberg sported a dark blue suit and tie with a white shirt for the ceremony, while Chan wore a traditional white wedding dress with veil and lace.

Food was served family-style and included dishes from the couple's favorite Palo Alto sushi restaurant.

Zuckerberg met Chan at Harvard, where he founded Facebook in a dorm room in 2004, and have been together for more than nine years.

Chan's own Facebook page, which now lists her as married to the founder, said she is a native of Braintree, Mass., and attended high school in nearby Quincy.

She graduated Harvard in 2007 then taught science to fourth and fifth graders at the Harker School in San Jose for two years before starting medical school, according to her profile.

Her page also says she "loves cooking and soft things."

Even after the IPO, Zuckerberg, who grew up in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., remains Facebook's single largest shareholder, with 503.6 million shares, and he controls the company with 56% of its voting stock.

The site has grown into a worldwide network of almost a billion people and made its founder, Time magazine's Person of the Year in 2010, one of the most famous businessmen of the Internet age.

Facebook's valuation after its flotation on Friday means the social network site is worth about the same as internet shopping giant Amazon, and more than the value of stalwarts such as Disney.

Even after the flotation, Zuckerberg continues to control just under 56% of the voting power of the company.

Zuckerberg "Likes" Chan and Weds

 
In a quiet backyard celebration Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook married his long-time girlfriend, Pricilla Chan at his home in Palo Alto, CA today.  Guests were told they were celebrating Chan’s graduation from medical school and were shocked to learn that the event was actually a wedding. The bride graduated from University of California San Francisco with a doctorate earlier this week, on the same day as Zuckerberg’s birthday. About 100 guests attended the affair.

Zuckerberg tipped off the press to the nupials when he changed his status to “married” on his Facebook page.  He shared the photo above on his Facebook page and on his timeline, along with a photo from the stock exchange. AP reported the story.

The bride wore an elegant long, white wedding dress with a delicate lace overlay. The wedding ring was simple ruby, designed by Zuckerberg. The groom wore a serious dark suit with a narrow tie, not his casual garb with his signature hoodie.

The wedding was the final ceremony of a bruising week that included the highly-anticipated IPO of Facebook, which broke records on market capitalization for internet companies.

The couple dated for eight years before the wedding. They met at Harvard University when Facebook was in its early phases. They had been planning the wedding for months and decided to wait until after Chan graduated. The timing was not related to the date of Facebook IPO, which had been in flux for weeks due to SEC delays. Zuckerberg turned 28 this week and Chan is 27.

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Facebook Seeks Political Ad Dollars

Published by MIT

Political advertisers are going to flock to FB this year  

There’s certainly money in politics, and Facebook knows it. The company, now under pressure to to justify its enormous $104 billion IPO, is trying to hire someone to maximize political advertising sales during the 2012 election season in the U.S.

“The Client Partner will establish and strengthen key relationships with national political campaigns and organizations with a focus on driving revenue, platform adoption, advertiser education, and advertiser satisfaction,” the posting on Facebook's website says.

How much money is in politics for Facebook? That's hard to say. But with the rise of the Super PAC, campaign spending on advertising will likely reach record-breaking levels this year. A growing percentage of that is moving online, in part because fewer people are watching live TV than during previous election years, according to the global ad agency WPP. The Hill reports that the Obama campaign alone is on track to spend $35 million on total online advertising this year, up from $16 million in 2008.

Unlike other advertisers that have questioned the value of Facebook this week, both the Romney and Obama presidential campaigns are likely to appreciate Facebook's importance. It had 40 million U.S. users in 2008 compared with 160 million today—almost the entire American voting public, according to The Guardian.

So, yes, we’ll be seeing a lot more politics in and next to our News Feeds over the next few months, targeted based on our activity and our friends' activity on the network. Whether the lifting of corporate spending limits on political campaigns, a result of a Supreme Court decision in 2010, will actually be a meaningful boost Facebook’s bottom line this year is unknown. The company’s total advertising revenue worldwide was about $3 billion in 2011.

 Jessica Leber Newscribe : get free news in real time

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Consumers' Debt trap of payday loans in UK

 
A third of people experienced greater financial problems as a result of taking out a payday loan, according to Which?

Payday loans are trapping increasing numbers of consumers in a downward spiral of debt caused by exorbitant penalty charges, a consumer group has warned.

More than 60pc of people who take out payday loans are using the money for household bills or buying other essentials like food, nappies and petrol, a survey by Which? found.

The figures show an "alarming" picture of people trapped in debt caused by penalty charges because they cannot afford to pay back the loan on time, the watchdog said.

A quarter (25pc) of those who had taken out loans said they had been hit with hidden charges such as high fees for reminder letters, and one in five (18pc) were not able to pay back their loan on time.

A third of people (33pc) experienced greater financial problems as a result of taking out a payday loan, and 45pc of them were hit with unexpected charges.

Which? said the debt trap was compounded with 57pc being encouraged to take out further loans and 45pc rolling over their loans at least once.

A third of people (33pc) were bombarded with unsolicited calls, texts and emails before they had even signed an agreement.

The investigation of 34 payday loans companies' websites also found that customers could face a £150 charge by one company, Quid24.com, if they repaid their loan 10 days late. Most of the companies failed to show clearly their charges or charged excessive amounts for defaulting.

Consumers were also potentially being allowed to take on credit they could not afford, with eight out of 34 companies failing to carry out any credit checks as part of their approval procedure and nearly two-thirds of those surveyed not asked about any aspect of their financial situation apart from their salary.

Some websites failed to provide any terms and conditions and many of those that did had little or no information about a borrower's rights and obligations or references to free debt advice.

Which? is calling on the Office of Fair Trading to enforce existing consumer credit and lending rules that already apply to payday loans firms and to restrict the default charges that payday loans companies can charge.

Which? executive director Richard Lloyd said: "With 1.2 million people taking out a payday loan last year, it is unacceptable for this rapidly growing number of people to be inadequately protected from extortionate charges and dodgy marketing techniques.

"At its worst, this booming £2bn industry can be seriously bad news for borrowers who are struggling to afford food or pay their bills. People are getting caught up in a debt trap, whacked with high penalty charges, or encouraged to roll over payments and take out more loans at inflated rates.

"The regulator should properly enforce the existing rules that apply to this industry, but they must go further and impose a cap on the amount that lenders can charge for defaulting.

The Government should also now explore other ways to protect hard-pressed borrowers, including Australian-style measures to cap costs and promote affordable alternatives."

Consumer Focus director of financial services Sarah Brooks said: "This research throws up some extremely troubling findings and poses many uncomfortable questions about the growing payday loan sector.

We have long held concerns about the behaviour of some payday lenders and whether consumers are losing out because this industry is not regulated strongly enough.

"Our research in 2010 showed problems with inadequate affordability checks and borrowers being offered multiple new loans or roll-overs on existing loans. Which?'s findings suggest that problems have worsened in this industry and that more borrowers are finding themselves caught in debt traps. Millions are turning to these loans in the current economic climate and it is usually those on lower incomes that suffer most.

"This work is timely given the OFT's compliance review of payday lenders. There is clearly a continuing problem with payday loans and this should give further incentive, if any is needed, for the OFT to act quickly to protect consumers from spiralling debt." Telegrah

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Stop the banks from gambling!

The JPMorgan Chase debacle is ample reminder that banks are dangerously risking money on dubious bets with dire consequences if they are not stopped. 





US giant financial services group JPMorgan Chases trading debacle which has already lost US$2bil and which threatens to raise losses to double that, will likely put pressure for greater regulation of the banking industry, not just in the United States but around the world.

That is as it should be for despite the 2008 financial crisis which resulted from bankers structuring complex and questionable credit derivatives which few understood but many bought because they believed the rating assigned them by unknowledgeable credit rating agencies, the lessons dont appear to have been learnt.

With massive US government help, many banks which were on the brink of failure were rescued and the memories of those tempestuous times when the future of not just the banks but the worlds financial system was in jeopardy seems to have faded away from public consciousness.

Until now that is.

JPMorgans debacle is but a stark reminder that little has changed since the 2008 world financial crisis in terms of how banks operate and that the world is still held to ransom by rogue traders and others who risk shareholders funds and depositors money as easily and as nonchalantly as spinning the dice on a gambling table for a few dollars.

The sad truth is that little has been done despite all the rhetoric to ensure that the predatory chase for profits by banks does not involve gambling with shareholders equity and deposits. Players still get away with massive profits and bonuses when they succeed and little more than slap on the wrist when things go wrong.

It is an indication of a financial world that has gone awry as players such as hedge funds effectively search for new games to play in a massive, borderless casino where the uninitiated are quickly gobbled up and the others play high-stakes games in which some must become major losers.

This comment by Mark Williams, a professor of finance at Boston University, who has also served as a Federal Reserve Board examiner quoted in the New York Times aptly sums up JPMorgans mistake:

JPMorgan Chase has a big hedge fund inside a commercial bank. They should be taking in deposits and making loans, not taking large speculative bets.

The trades by JPMorgan are complex to say the least and no one really seems to understand them. The New York Times reported that the complex position built by the bank included a bullish bet on an index of investment-grade corporate debt and was later paired with a bearish bet on high-yield securities.

The report further said that the trading losses suffered by JPMorgan have accelerated in recent days and have surpassed the banks initial estimate of US$2bil by at least US$1bil. Part of the reason for this is that hedge funds already know JPMorgans position is under pressure and are piling in on the opposite trade. That means the US$4bil losses anticipated may materialise sooner rather than later.

While the US$4bil loss wont threaten JP Morgans capital base, the question that must arise is what if the losses were much bigger and they could well have been. JPMorgan would most likely be considered one of those banks that cant fail and would have been rescued by the US government.

To stop exactly such situations, the Obama administration had put up the Volcker Rule named after former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker who helped formulate it but the legislation is still being hammered out. The rule basically seeks to prohibit banks from trading for their own account.

But there are exceptions and these allow banks to aggregate their positions and offset their exposures in a single hedge. Some feel that JPMorgans so-called hedge an oxymoron in this instance as it hedged nothing falls into that category but others dont.

For most of us, the solution is quite simple and straightforward if you are a bank and you take depositors money, you got no business speculating using that money, especially since you also have access to low-cost funds from the Fed and elsewhere by virtue of being a bank.

But it is an election year in the US and the silly season of course, much like it is here.

Remember, free enterprise and the capitalist system on which the US is built. You cant restrict free enterprise, the reasoning goes, even if it is your money the bank is using.

Big business has big money and they are using that to try and put Mitt Romney into the White House. If that happens, then it may well be bye-bye to banking sector reform which would be bad for the United States and the world.

New York Times columnist and renowned economist Paul Krugman was very blunt in his analysis of the JPMorgan debacle at the end of which he basically thanked JPMorgan Chases chief executive Jamie Dimon for confirming that the banking sector needs greater regulation.

Krugman, an unashamed and unabashed Democrat, has been one of those opinion makers who has been consistently calling for greater regulation of the US financial sector in the wake of world financial crisis.
JPMorgan, relatively unscathed by the world financial crisis sparked off by the subprime crisis but now in trouble through a trade engineered by a trader in London known as The Whale, is a timely reminder that little has been done to stop the recurrence of another world financial crisis.

Let us take heed before it is too late.

A QUESTION OF BUSINESS By P. GUNASEGARAM starbiz@thestar.com.my
Independent consultant and writer P Gunasegaram sometimes thinks that the financial world is just one whole, big, casino of unimagined proportions. The trouble is no one knows who owns it.

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MBA today is disrupting the competition?

The in word in business school today is disruption

AFTER seven weeks of cool spring weather, our Malaysian sun finally arrived in Boston. As I basked in the warm sunshine in the courtyard of McArthurs Hall, Harvard Business School (HBS), a gentle breeze reminded me of Awana Genting back to 2004, where I last enrolled in a two-week HBS management programme organised by our Malaysian HBS Alumni Club. Four HBS professors taught us then.

Here I am, eight years later, being taught by no less than 15 senior Harvard professors covering almost 120 case studies and numerous lectures. To justify their hefty fees, HBS threw their full arsenal of specialist professors at us. From basic strategy, finance, marketing subjects to deal making negotiation to social media to entrepreneurship. We have had the presence of former and current CEOs of Merck, Cisco, Carl Zeiss and many others attending our discussions on their company followed by their explanation and defence on their course of actions/decision making as per their case study.

Today, we covered the Facebook case study to coincide with its listing. And we had the director of FBI giving us a lecture after attending the case study on FBI reorganisation after Sept 11. To say that I am impressed would be an understatement.

It was like a Hollywood movie. There must be at least 10 FBI agents with their standard issued earpiece and dark suits staring at us at the entrance and exit. And then a standing ovation at the end of the speech to send off The Director. Captain America has saved the universe again.

HBS is the post graduate business school of the Harvard University. It has arguably the most revered MBA programme in the world. With a fixed annual enrolment of 900 students, an applicant has a 7% success rate and he or she will be at least 27 years old with an average of four years working experience. It is a two-year programme with full residential accommodation provided in campus. Depending on ones preferred living standards, the expected investment should be between US$160,000 and US$200,000 (RM480,000 and RM600,000) over two years.

It is in the executive education that HBS has amazed me the most. They have built a business model that is difficult to replicate when in the world, all kinds of education business is being commoditised. They have differentiated themselves in terms of positioning, reputation and school fees. High, higher, highest.

HBS is a money making machine. They have built an organisation that is always evolving, very sensitive to the external environment. If necessary, they are not afraid to modify their strategy, realign people, structure, processes and their unique culture to face the new environment. All the time, staying close to their core strategy of providing a unique learning experience to their target market. They practise what they preach.

Sensitive to change

So are you sensitive to the changing environment' When do you think is a good time for your organisation to adjust your strategy and realign your organisation to face new challenges' Is it during the good times or only when your organisation is in intensive care'

On hindsight, just look at Malaysia Airlines over the last 15 years. What do you think the management should have done then' When Southwest Airlines and Ryanair in the United States and Europe respectively have successfully taken their markets by storm, they should not have ignored the threat set by AirAsia. When you see air ticket prices being commoditised, you will be flying into a smaller gross margin zone. Which means you need a leaner and lower cost structured organisation to face a new challenging environment. So what do you think happened' And is their current organisational cost structure lean enough to face even tougher challenges today' We will find out within 15 months.

In the current world where many products and services are moving towards commoditisation, how are you differentiating your products and services from the competition' More importantly, how do you continue to differentiate to stay ahead of your competition' Look at Astro. From a virtual stranglehold grip on cable TV market, their monopoly status has been threatened by new entrants offering lower cost options straight to your homes. Astros response must be swift and decisive. As a true market leader, Astro should pre-empt and disrupt the competition. With new technology and smart devices like iPad and smartphones, Astro will deliver contents to their consumers anywhere their consumers find it convenient to consume. Just like The Stars ePaper.

Then from the competitors viewpoint, just imagine Malay Mail relaunched as an ePaper. Massive savings on newsprint and delivery costs. Does that mean that this is the beginning of the end of free physical newspaper' Absolutely intriguing. Technological advances have disrupted businesses all over the world. And HBS is actually reviewing amongst themselves whether e-learning will disrupt their current successful executive education model' Will your business be disrupted by new technologies' If it is, be afraid. Be very afraid.

High margin 

I have always emphasised that entrepreneur wannabes should go into high margin business. Which means avoid businesses that is being commoditised and having the ability to differentiate your products or services from your competition. The in word in business school today is disruption. Disrupt others before they disrupt you. Disrupt yourself to stay ahead. Stay ahead of technology disruption. Be the disruptor not the disruptee. There are no such words. I just disrupted the dictionary.

So is the HBS executive education programme as good as they claimed' Does it justify the high positioning and high cost charged' Honestly, I have no idea. They have kept us so busy from day one to stop us from thinking about it. And they have piled a tonne of case studies and notes onto us. Plus many free books written by the professors. So much so that this bunch of senior executives with an average age of 47 years face information fatigue, CPU overload and degrading eyesights.

Case studies still piling in until the last day. John Kotter still to speak next week. But spirits are high as we look forward to the close of the programme. This programme has been a major disruption to my life. Miss my country, my sunshine, my food, my friends and colleagues. And most of all my family.

Have a happy weekend.

ON YOUR OWN By TAN THIAM HOCK

The writer is an entrepreneur who hopes to share his experience and insights with readers who want to take that giant leap into business but are not sure if they should. Email him at thtan@alliancecosmetics.com