Facebook“创始人公开信”空洞虚伪

    互联网公司上市时，公布“创始人公开信”已成为一种纯粹象征性的惯例，类似于进军股市的成人礼。2004年，谷歌（Google）上市时，拉里•佩奇和谢尔盖•布林开创了这个先河。去年，团购网站Groupon启动首次公开募股，安德鲁•梅森又将其提升到了一个可笑的新高度。

    如今，马克•扎克伯格也一试身手，发表了自己的“创始人公开信”，并在信中宣布了公司天真的初创理念。这类信件要么将自己的理念强加给准股东们，要么就是要变成公司的无价之宝，代代传承。然而，市场有其自身的运行规律，因此经过缓慢痛苦的过程，这些信件传达的理念最终都难逃惨遭扼杀的命运。

    上市公司的CEO偶尔会在IPO招股书中加入一封“致股东信”，但通常也只是涉及一些公关方面的内容，或者只是一封措辞友好的自荐信。其内容就像上市申请文件中充斥的那些图片一样，没有任何实际意义。但创始人公开信却截然不同。它是硅谷独特的产物。正是硅谷让创业者们成为身兼社会理想主义与冷血资本主义两种理念的混血儿。

    谷歌的IPO招股书以一封信作为开头，这封备受指责的信件开宗明义，大胆地宣称：“谷歌不是一家传统公司，将来也不想成为一家传统的公司。”接着，它又说：“我们将为了长期的目标不断完善自我，而不仅仅是为了获得每个月的稳定收入。我们将为经过精心挑选的高风险、高收益项目提供支持。”

    但随着机构投资者在谷歌所占股份增加，同时大量员工相继成为公司股东，作为一家上市公司，谷歌不得不面对现实。尽管谷歌一开始极力回避圈钱游戏，但如今的谷歌俨然已经成了一把赚钱的好手。到了去年夏天，拉里•佩奇在重新获得任命、成为CEO后召开的首次投资者盈利电话会议上，他目空一切的言辞已经有所收敛。佩奇对分析师和投资者们称：“虽然在个别时候，我们会有一些小型项目存在风险，但我们将始终作为投资者的管家，替他们精心管理资金。我们不会拿全部身家去冒险。”

    去年六月份，Groupon申请上市时，梅森在招股说明书中也放进了一封“创始人公开信”。像谷歌一样，信中对于季度盈利等投资者普遍关注的问题同样不屑一顾，只不过，梅森的措辞更加不靠谱。梅森说：“我们特立独行，而且乐在其中。”之后，他便开始喋喋不休地讲述“火舞”课程，大谈避免枯燥乏味的重要性。

    此外，梅森还警告潜在投资者们，Groupon“将注重长期增长，而不会太过于关注短期结果”，而且公司将根据“我们直觉的伟大因素”来制定决策。之后，他在CEO致股东的一封信中，又说出了下面这样极端不合时宜的话：“我们只关心客户和商户。”目前，Groupon的股价比20美元的发行价上涨了15%。下周，公司将提交上市之后的首份收益报告。如果这份收益报告、或者以后的报告无法令投资者们满意，投资者必然会向Groupon施压，迫使公司将股东加入到公司最关注对象的名单中。

    Facebook上周三提交的IPO招股说明书中，扎克伯格也附上了“创始人公开封信”，不过与Groupon或谷歌强硬的措辞相比，扎克伯格更加温和。其中最强硬的措辞是：“我们始终以我们的社会使命作为主要关注点。”可问题在于，他对公司社会使命的描述，听起来道貌岸然，实际上完全不是那么回事。

    For Internet companies going public, the founder's letter is becoming a ritual with a purely symbolic value, a rite of passage into the adulthood of public markets. Larry Page and Sergey Brin started it when Google (GOOG) went public in 2004. Andrew Mason raised it to absurd new heights when Groupon (GRPN) launched its IPO last year.

    Now Mark Zuckerberg's has tried his hand at the founder's letter, the naïve declaration of the company's startup ideals. Whether thrust defiantly into the faces of would-be shareholders or proffered delicately as a corporate heirloom of inestimable value, such epistles are doomed to enter into a slow, painful strangulation as market forces have their way.

    CEOs of companies going public will occasionally include a letter to shareholders in IPO prospectuses, but it's usually no more than a bit of PR, a friendly cover letter as meaningless as the stock photos that sometimes clutter the filings. But the founder's letter is different. It is a unique product of Silicon Valley, where startups grow up as hybrids of social idealism and cold-blooded capitalism.

    Google's IPO prospectus began with an infamous letter that boldly declared: "Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one" before asserting, "We will optimize for the long term rather than trying to produce smooth earnings for each quarter. We will support selected high-risk, high-reward projects."

    But as institutional investors came to own a larger piece of Google, and as many of the company's employees became its shareholders, the realities of being a publicly traded company began to sink in. Google became quite adept at the earnings game it first shunned. By last summer, in Larry Page's first earnings call with investors since being reappointed as CEO, his defiant rhetoric had been toned down. "We may have a few small speculative projects happening at any given time but we're very careful stewards of shareholder money," page told analysts and investors on the call. "We're not betting the farm on this stuff."

    When Groupon filed to go public last June, Mason included in the prospectus a founder's letter that, like Google's, shrugged off standard investor concerns like quarterly earnings -- only Mason employed a flakier rhetoric. "We are unusual and we like it that way," Mason said, before rattling on about fire-dancing classes and the importance of not being boring.

    Mason also warned would-be investors that Groupon would "invest in long-term growth... regardless of certain short-term consequences" and make decisions based on "what we feel in our gut to be great." Then, in what must be one of the most irreverent lines in a CEO letter to shareholders, "Our customers and merchants are all we care about." Groupon, trading 15% above its $20 offering price, will deliver its first earnings report as a public company next week. Any disappointment in that or future earnings reports could result in investor pressure that adds a third group to the list of things Groupon cares about -- shareholders.

    In the IPO prospectus Facebook filed Wednesday, Zuckerberg wrote a founder's letter that is more conciliatory than defiant in tone than Groupon or Google's letters. The harshest phrase he used was "we've always cared primarily about our social mission." But the problem is, when he describes that social mission, he ends up sounding pious and, well, plain wrong.