Sean Parker: Facebook IPO ‘the largest offering in history’

By | January 29, 2012, 2:26pm PST

Summary: Napster co-founder Sean Parker was recently interviewed about Facebook’s initial public offering (IPO). He said it would be “the largest offering in history” and that there’s a Facebook bubble.

Napster co-founder Sean Parker, who at one point worked as Facebook’s president (he owns 4 percent of the company), recently appeared in a CNBC. The first topic the interviewer asked Parker about was of course Facebook’s initial public offering (IPO).

If you can’t see the video embedded, here’s a transcript a rundown of what Parker said. First he was about Facebook going public and whether the social networking giant is worth $100 billion. Here’s the answer:

I think that it’s inevitable. I can’t comment as to timing. I do think that there’s a possibility that it will be the largest offering in history. I don’t know what the number is going to be. I think we’re all eagerly anticipating that data.

Is today’s market ready for Facebook? Parker thinks Facebook is the bubble:

I actually believe that to the extent that there’s any bubble in technology at all it’s really a bubble around Facebook in the sense that there’s a huge amount of pent up demand amongst retail investors for access to Facebook equity. That’s where you’re seeing a lot of the valuations and a lot of these other IPOs that are basically leveraging off of Facebook. It’s somewhat interesting and ironic that Zynga, which is built on Facebook’s platform, which only launched a few years ago actually, went public before Facebook. It really speaks to Mark’s desire to keep the company private for as long as possible and build a company in that environment.

As for if and when Parker will sell his Facebook shares, he answered: “I can’t comment on that.” The Spotify part of the interview is interesting but then Parker is asked about The Social Network, and it just falls apart.

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Emil Protalinski has covered the tech industry for five years for multiple publications.

Disclosure

Emil Protalinski

Emil has nothing to disclose.

Biography

Emil Protalinski

Emil Protalinski has covered the tech industry for five years for multiple publications, including Neowin for two years and Ars Technica for three years. He has written 1,000s of articles for both, with a particular focus on scrutinizing Microsoft products and services. Recently, Emil has expanded his coverage to non-Microsoft technologies, including the social networking giant Facebook.

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