Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg once said: “My goal was never to just create a company. A lot of people misinterpret that, as if I don’t care about revenue or profit or any of those things. But what not being “just” a company means to me is building something that actually makes a really big change in the world”. These words show exactly the path which Facebook follows. Started in 2005, Mark has led Facebook to accomplish approximately 50 mergers and acquisitions. From face.com (face recognition platform) to Instagram (photo sharing), to WhatsApp (Mobile instant messaging, $19 billion), every single case reveals Mark’s ambition as well as his comprehensive and remarkable strategic plan---to change the world.

People probably still remember what happened to Facebook’s IPO two years ago when the price dropped below the initial offer price immediately after market’s open. That must be very depressing. However Mark was not defeated by that, instead he used less than two years to refute people’s worries and demonstrated his company in great value. From the most recent financial statements we can see Facebook has deployed a very efficient and cost-effective infrastructure. In the past 5 consecutive quarters, it successfully maintained an optimistic sales growth rate and at the same time reduced cost of revenue from 28% to 18% and general & administrative cost from 12% to 7%. By steadily generating healthy cash flows which is crucial in business valuation, this social giant shows an unstoppable power of rising.

Mark’s external finance strategy also draws headlines. Taking WhatsApp’s acquisition for instance, this company runs a very different business mode. When Facebook announced this acquisition deal, doubts and rumors flourished, but not very long, people came to realize how outstanding this deal could be. Facebook’s revenue are basically generated from advertising and payment systems (games and apps). WhatsApp, however, only makes money out of software usage charge. Even...