Well, I'm not sure this is true. You typically want to have a strong IPO to generate momentum for your company and shape the public's perception. Perhaps this

Well, I'm not sure this is true. You typically want to have a strong IPO to generate momentum for your company and shape the public's perception. Perhaps this is different because so much was trading in private markets before the IPO, but it does seem like perhaps they should have priced around the $36 range. Now the story over the weekend is "Facebook fails to live up to the hype" http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/05/19/2150253/facebook-fails-to-live-up-to-hype.html http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/05/19/2150253/facebook-fa... "Facebook Fails Day-One Pop, Lags Behind Google" http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-05-18/facebook-failing-to-garner-day-one-pop-lags-behind-google http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-05-18/facebook-failing... Had they priced it a bit lower and left some money on the table, you likely would have had enough positive momentum to probably maintain a 10-15% pop. Does this matter for the company? Probably not. From my very limited experiences, the quality of people at facebook seems generally very high, and the culture seems focused on building product, not managing investor perception. Big picture, it's just a blip, but on the margin, it wasn't the ideal outcome.