"From a less elementary perspective this means that Facebook, a website less than five years old, is now valued at as much money as Ford Motors." http://financ

"From a less elementary perspective this means that Facebook, a website less than five years old, is now valued at as much money as Ford Motors." http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=F http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=F Ford's enterprise value (as opposed to the value of their stock) is about $150 billion. One of the reasons new companies look deceptively valuable is that they're capitalized mostly with equity. A large company like Ford or GE will borrow pretty extensively, and their stock will be a small fraction of their total value (though probably the best proxy for how well they create wealth).