Hey, it just continues the slashdot trend of calling anyone you don't agree with a shill!

True, they did start Adwords a bit before their IPO - but let's not forget that the revenue they made is not even in the same ballpark that what Facebook is making now, before their own IPO.

Eh, nowhere it stays Facebook's shares crashed. In fact it raised quite fast, and then again lowered down to slightly higher level than the initial $42.05. Let's not also forget that Facebook valued them very highly to begin with, which is one of the main things even slashdotters are crying about - it's not going to rise much higher, since they probably put it into a sweet spot already.

Since Facebook (like Apple) doesn't pay dividends, that hardly matters. The only way you can profit from buying Facebook's stock is sell it at higher price and that is not tied to profit, or by buying share large enough (though only 18% of Facebook's shares were made available, and big investors like the Russian Digital Sky Technologies have had access to buy before anyway)

Seems to have been quite great for Google, which spent its first six years (1998-2004) without making anything and just running things on venture capital.

Facebook hasn't yet really spent time on monetization. Their primary goal has been quick growth and they have greatly succeeded in that. Yes, there are ads and similar, but they are not yet at the level they could or even should be. Thus it's useless to try to compare to Facebook's earnings. And this is how the game is played, and what even many slashdotters want - make a great service first, and only then focus on profiting. It's not like Facebook is going to run out of cash, they still have great income and assloads of banks and venture capital ready to kick in if needed.

I do have to applaud Mark Zuckerberg. He is definitely a geek that made it, and at such an young age too. I know slashdotters are jealous and hate him, but boy is he something. He even shows the typical geeky attitude of wearing whatever clothes he wants, even to business meetings with banks! Give the guy some credit where due.