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Zuckerberg: "Our mission isn't to be a public company"

Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a short speech before he rang the Nasdaq bell remotely from his company's headquarters in Menlo Park. In short, he's happy, but not ecstatic.
Written by Emil Protalinski, Contributor

Facebook on Thursday priced its shares at $38, giving itself a valuation of $104 billion, and raising $18.41 billion. Earlier today, Facebook went public at 9:30 AM EST. Right before then though, Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg had a few words to share, courtesy of Bloomberg.

Here's a transcript of what Zuckerberg said:

I just want to say a few things, and then we'll ring this bell and we'll get back to work. Right now, this all seems like a big deal. Going public is an important milestone in our history. But here's the thing: our mission isn't to be a public company. Our mission is to make the world more open and connected. In the past eight years, all of you out there have built the largest community in the history of the world. You've done amazing things that we never would have dreamed of, and I can't wait to see what you're all going to do going forward.

So, on this special day, on behalf of everyone at Facebook, I just want to say to all the people out there who use Facebook and our products, thank you.

So let's do this! *Hits the button to ring the Nasdaq bell*

This is an awesome moment. Remember, stay focused and keep shipping.

Following all this, at 11:00 AM EST, Facebook began trading on the Nasdaq under the "FB" ticker.

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