Facebook上市背后的推手

    2009年，戴维•埃伯斯曼时任生物科技巨头基因泰克（Genentech）首席财务官，某种意义上他也是该公司董事长阿特•莱文森的门生。这一年，埃伯斯曼协助基因泰克完成了金额达460亿美元的一项交易。交易完成后，罗氏控股（Roche Holdings）成为公司的全资股东。此后不久，他就开始接到美国一些大公司打来的招聘电话。

    但埃伯斯曼最后决定加入一家初创企业，虽然当时这家公司的员工人数还不到1,000人，营收微薄，而且首席财务官也像走马灯似地换个不停。

    现在来看，这一步险棋至少获得了回报。

    作为Facebook的首席财务官，现年42岁的埃伯斯曼是这家公司轰动一时的IPO背后主要推手之一。

    埃伯斯曼为人温和谦逊，他在基因泰克的15年职业生涯堪称辉煌。1994年，他作为业务开发分析师加盟基因泰克。他引起了时任首席执行官莱文森的注意【莱文森后来加入了苹果公司（Apple），成为了公司的董事长】。莱文森告诉我，他让埃伯斯曼走上了有别于他人的特殊发展道路，作为有前途的管理人员培养，每隔两、三年会得到提拔，接受新的挑战。

    短短几年后，埃伯斯曼开始管理产品开发业务。他展现出卓越的运营技能之后，被提升为基因泰克制造业务负责人，管理着该公司当时约8,000名雇员的一半左右。

    2006年，他被任命为基因泰克的执行副总裁兼首席财务官，并赢得了善于从长计议的名声。例如，他帮助推动基因泰克接受了某些成本高昂的临床试验，这些试验的结果不确定，但潜在回报巨大。莱文森称：“这些决定可能是当时能做出的最明智的决定，但如果看看公司下一季度或下一年的情况，确实很难下定决心。”

    作为首席财务官，埃伯斯曼很快赢得了投资者和分析师的尊重和钦佩。券商国际策略暨投资集团（ISI Group）的生物科技和医药行业高级分析师马克•舒恩鲍姆称：“当时很多人，包括我自己在内，都说：‘基因泰克究竟是怎么了，居然找一个34岁的人做首席财务官。’”（事实上埃伯斯曼当时是36岁。）但舒恩鲍姆表示，第一次面谈时，他就很快信服了。“埃伯斯曼走进来，开口说话，30秒后，我就说：‘我明白了’。大家都觉得他是个聪明人。”

    舒恩鲍姆说，埃伯斯曼在华尔街颇受欢迎，部分是因为他愿意直面投资者的问题。“他人很好，一点架子都没有，”他说。他还说，罗氏当初收购基因泰克的谈判过程很微妙，埃伯斯曼在其间发挥了重要作用，帮助基因泰克股东实现了利益的最大化。

    Shortly after he helped to close the $46 billion deal that turned Roche Holdings into the full owner of Genentech in 2009, David Ebersman, who was chief financial officer of the biotechnology giant and something of a protégé to Chairman Art Levinson, started fielding recruiting calls from some of America's biggest companies.

    But Ebersman decided to join a startup with fewer than 1,000 employees, meager revenues and a history of cycling through CFOs

    The gambit paid off, to say the least.

    As chief financial officer of Facebook, Ebersman, who is 42, has been one of the chief drivers behind the company's blockbuster IPO filing.

    A quiet and unassuming executive, Ebersman had a stellar, 15-year career at Genentech (RHHBY). He joined in 1994 as a business development analyst. He caught the eye of Levinson, who was CEO at the time (he would later join the Apple (AAPL) board and become its chairman). Levinson tells me he placed Ebersman on special track in which promising executives were promoted and given new challenges every two or three years.

    Within a few years, Ebersman was running product development. After proving his skills as an operator, he was promoted to head Genentech's manufacturing, a position that gave him oversight of about half of the company's 8,000 or so employees at the time.

    In 2006, he was named executive vice president and CFO, and earned a reputation for reinforcing long-term thinking. For example he helped push the company to embrace certain costly clinical trials whose results were uncertain but whose potentially payoffs were huge. "These decisions can be the wisest you can make, but if you are looking at the next quarter or at the next year, they are hard to swallow," says Levinson.

    As CFO, Ebersman quickly earned the respect an admiration of investors and analysts. "A lot of people, myself included, said 'what the hell is going on at Genentech that they are naming a 34-year-old as CFO," says Mark Schoenebaum, a senior analyst covering biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies at the ISI Group. (Ebersman was actually 36 at the time.) But Schoenenbaum says that at their first face-to-face meeting he was quickly mollified. "He comes in, and within 30 seconds of his opening his mouth, I said, 'I get it.' He comes across as brilliant."

    Schoenebaum says Ebersman was well liked on Wall Street, in part because of his willingness to deal forthrightly with investors' questions. "He is a very nice guy with not a shred of ego," he says. And he says Ebersman played an important role in helping to get the most value for Genentech shareholders during delicate takeover negotiations with Roche.