Facebook has been in the news a lot lately since going public. While some are going to battle with Facebook in the courtroom other are just parting ways. Check out the story on Mark Cuban and Facebook after the jump.
The Dallas Mavericks’ losses this year weren’t the only ones that upset Internet mogul Mark Cuban.
The sports franchise and billionaire entrepreneur owner told CNBC that he sold all 150,000 shares of Facebook stock he owned after suffering through the stock’s weak initial showing.
“I already sold it, I took my hit, my thesis was wrong. I thought we would get a quick bounce just about the excitement about the stock. I was wrong, and when you are wrong you don’t wait, you just get out. So I took a beating and left,” he told CNBC on Monday.
Cuban joins the many who have been disappointed in the stock’s early days. Although the stock has picked up recently, Facebook shares will likely be volatile for a while.
Cuban told CNBC that Facebook’s problem was that it issued too many shares — 421 million — and thus depressed the stock price. (Though that’s another way of saying demand for the shares just wasn’t as high as folks like Cuban expected.) The billionaire went on to say that Facebook should have followed LinkedIn’s footsteps. The professional networking company issued 8.4 million shares, and its stock “skyrocketed,” Cuban said.
Facebook continues to take hits over its bungled IPO and a poor mobile monetization strategy.
Cuban said making money off mobile isn’t just Facebook’s problem — it’s an issue for every Internet company, including Google and Zynga.