That giant whooshing sound is Facebook’s $15 billion valuation going up in smoke


So says Henry Blodget of Alley Insider. (See here.) Henry views Facebook’s decision to take on debt (leasing $100 million worth of servers) as a sign that it can’t raise money at its much-vaunted $15 billion valuation, which wouldn’t be surprising since that was always a ridiculous figure. Blodget’s theory: Facebook “couldn’t sell any more equity at $15 billion, and it didn’t want to do a down round, so it turned to the debt markets.” He also suspects Facebook will burn more cash this year than it previously said it would.

Everyone said the Borg was crazy when it bought a tiny chunk of Facebook at the ridiculous $15 billion valuation. But think about it. For a mere $240 million (pocket change for the Beastmaster) they’ve put the boy genius in a bit of a jam, no?

Of course, on the other hand, most people would love to have Zuckerberg’s kind of problems.