exits, owen van natta, top, facebook, mark zuckerberg

Owen Van Natta out of Facebook

Van outta here Once Mark Zuckerberg's right-hand man, Owen Van Natta is leaving Facebook in a couple of weeks. Van Natta, who openly aspired to be CEO — of Facebook or another company — was demoted from COO to vice president of revenue operations last summer. While he downplayed it at the time, it was a clear signal Van Natta was getting no closer to the executive suite. One question: Will Facebook buy back Van Natta's shares at the company's $15 billion valuation? Private companies sometimes do that for departing executives. Whether Facebook extends that lucrative courtesy to Van Natta will be the best indicator of ator of how friendly his departure was.

Oh, and I've been waiting for an excuse to tell you this: Van Natta's middle name is "Thomas." That's just bizarre, right?

3:27 PM on Tue Feb 19 2008
By Owen Thomas
2,634 views
8 comments

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mandarin at 03:52 PM on 02/19/08
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Take the money!
Rick at 04:25 PM on 02/19/08
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Bwahaha, that would assume that anyone high up at facebook actually believes their 15B hype, which would be folly. They probably can't afford to buy his shares at that valuation.
DaveMcClure500Hats at 11:56 PM on 02/19/08
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@owen-thomas-not-van-natta-just-van-wanna:

>>Van Natta's middle name is "Thomas." That's just bizarre, right?

so applying some new math here, based on sharing a first & middle name, i think that means you get 2/3 of his stock options, right owen?

maybe if u talk to someone downtown at City Hall, and you could even pick up the remaining third...
ThatKid at 12:33 AM on 02/20/08
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@Rick: Yah. I've heard first hand that Facebook's internal valuation is pretty far south of $15B.

Regardless, if Facebook's as poised for growth as everyone says they are, you'd rather keep the shares than the money, no?
sggrf at 03:24 AM on 02/20/08
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@ThatKid:

Huh? There's no such thing as an internal valuation that's vastly different from the MSN price. That sounds like inappropriate accounting practices --- you can't have it both ways, in accounting or life.
ThatKid at 06:21 AM on 02/20/08
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@sggrf: Dude, I'm not making this up.

It's pretty typical, actually, for private companies to get a 3rd-party firm to determine a valuation to use internally for setting employee option strike price.

That aside, no one knows the structuring of the deal Facebook struck with Microsoft et al. this round. MSFT clearly got something out of the deal than just stock (exclusive ads), so the blind multiplication there was the wrong from jump street. No clue what kind of quid pro quo was in it for Ka-shing, but odds are he got something, too. When it hits the books, who knows what the pre- and post- come out to?
MrMedia at 07:48 AM on 02/20/08
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will Van Natta still get free virtual puppies and ice cream cones to give to his facebook friends after he departs the company?
sggrf at 01:42 PM on 02/20/08
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@ThatKid:

I totally believe you and you're right. We used one of those outside firms. They can credibly come up with lower valuations that might be discounted up to 30% below the closest capital raise, but anything lower is a scandal --- no matter what anyone says. They did a full market check and got a negotiated term sheet. It's hard to argue with that. You know what they might be doing? Something very cynical: they may have the price too low knowing that it will help them with recruiting, but, if they ever exit and the IRS or SEC comes calling, all their employees will get whacked. What will they say to them? Oops - sorry!