Cash out, new broom in, Miami beckons?.....or not

Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg has (apparently) cashed out to the tune of $40m. Good for him, I think the game at present is far too weighted towards investors, not entrepreneurs (see our post on the Founders Discount)

However, as an old boss of mine once said, cashing out is inevitably followed by the Miami Factor - the alluring pull of warm days, cool yachts, hot babes and cold margaritas. No matter the honest intentions initially, the siren call of the wild party life beckons....

Our Hypothesis - this clears the way for a new head to take charge of Facebook, as after the Beacon episode this is probably the required next step, and is the only way to save face when volte-facing on the $15bn valuation.

Update - no he hasn't sez Valleywag, but they do point to issues about that $15bn valuation. So why the rumour?

The most likely explanation: Facebook's $15 billion valuation has sparked a round of fear and greed inside the company. Early employees, themselves large shareholders, are agitating to have Zuckerberg let them take money off the table and sell some of their shares. Exploiting the rumor mill is a way for them to gain leverage with Zuckerberg, whose 27 percent stake in the company is worth $4 billion.

By the way, I was reading the notes of the $100bn Facebook valuation earlier. Didn't know whether to laugh or cry....one cannot recommend it too highly

'Nother Update - Scoble sez us bloggers are taken in by Valleywag.....ummm...not really, though I guess one should print an Official Health Warning when taking stories from Valleywag, its just that this story was too good not to comment on - and as someone who has been in this industry awhile, I'd argue that its usually true that there is no smoke sans fire

Even Better..La Scoble. who whinged that Valleywag was waaaay off base for reporting he would leave PodTech has....left PodTech. You go, Valley guys.