Mark Zuckerberg is the largest shareholder in the company. Zuckerberg retains ownership and control of the company. Like Google, Facebook has issued two common stocks, Class A and Class B. The holders of Class B common stocks are entitled to ten votes per share, and holders of our Class A common stocks are entitled to one vote per share. Mark Zuckerberg has a voting power of 56.9%; he’s the primary decision-maker. Other individual investors comprise Sheryl Sandberg, Christopher Cox, Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, Dustin Moskovitz, and Eduardo Saverin.
Who is Christopher Cox?
An American lawyer and former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman, a 17-year Republican United States House of Representatives member. Christopher Cox is an attorney, teacher, and entrepreneur.
Who is Sheryl Sandberg?
Sheryl Sandberg is an American businesswoman. She served as the chief operating officer of Facebook from 2008 until she stepped down in 2022.
In June 2012, she was also elected to the board of directors by the existing board members, becoming the first woman to serve on its board.
Before Facebook, Sandberg was Google’s Vice President of Global Online Sales and Operations.
Who is Eduardo Saverin?
Eduardo Saverin is a Brazilian internet entrepreneur and investor. Saverin is one of five co-founders of Facebook (with Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, and Andrew McCollum).
Who is Peter Thiel?
Peter Thiel is a German-born American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and hedge fund manager. Thiel co-founded PayPal with Max Levchin and served as its CEO.
Who is Marc Andreessen?
Marc Andreessen is an American entrepreneur, investor, software engineer, and multi-millionaire. He is best known as the co-author of Mosaic, the first widely used Web browser; as co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation; and as co-founder and general partner of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.
How Does Facebook Business Model Work?
Facebook is based on the advertising business model.
Even though there are several sources of income, most of the revenue comes from ads:
Facebook, the main product of Meta, is an attention merchant. As such, its algorithms condense the attention of over 2.91 billion monthly active users as of June 2021. Meta generated $117.9 billion in revenues in 2021, of which $114.9 billion was from advertising (97.4% of the total revenues) and over $2.2 billion from Reality Labs (the augmented and virtual reality products arm).
How Does Facebook Make Money?
Facebook makes most of its money from advertising:
1. Advertising (over 97.4% of revenues): it consists of displaying ad products on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and third-party.
2. Reality Labs: now consisting of all the development of products for the Metaverse. Here it includes Oculus, now rebranded as Meta Quest.
Read Also: Facebook Hidden Revenue Business Model Explained.
Related Visual Stories
Who Owns Facebook
Facebook, rebranded as Meta in 2021, is primarily owned by Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO. Zuckerberg keeps tight control over the ownership and decision-making of the company. Other large individual shareholders comprise former COO Sheryl Sandberg and co-founder Eduardo Saverin. Large institutional investors include BlackRock, Vanguard, and Fidelity.
Facebook Business Model
Facebook, the main product of Meta is an attention merchant. As such, its algorithms condense the attention of over 2.91 billion monthly active users as of June 2021. Meta generated $117.9 billion in revenues, in 2021, of which $114.9 billion from advertising (97.4% of the total revenues) and over $2.2 billion from Reality Labs (the augmented and virtual reality products arm).
Facebook Revenue Breakdown
Facebook Revenues
Facebook Employees
Facebook Revenue Per Employee
In 2022, post layoffs, Facebook generated $1,535,056 per employee, compared to $1,638,586 in 2021.
Facebook MAU
Facebook ARPU
ARPU, or average revenue per user, is a key metric for attention merchants like Facebook. It assesses the ability of the platform to monetize its users. For instance, by the end of 2022, Meta’s ARPU worldwide was $10.86. While in US & Canada, it was $58.77; in Europe, it was $17.29; in Asia, $4.61 and in the rest of the world, it was $3.52.
Facebook ARPU 2010-2022
The ARPU, or average revenue per user, is a key metric to track the success of Facebook – now Meta – family of products. For instance, by the end of 2022, Meta’s ARPU worldwide was $10.86. While in US & Canada, it was $58.77; in Europe, it was $17.29; in Asia, $4.61 and in the rest of the world, it was $3.52.
Facebook Profitability
Reality Labs
As of September 2022, Facebook, rebranded as Meta, is a profitable company, generating $18.54B in net profits. Yet, if we look at its Reality Labs segment, which is in charge of building the Metaverse, it recorded a net loss of $9.44 billion in the first nine months of 2022.
Instagram Business Model
Instagram makes money via visual advertising. Acquired by Facebook for a billion-dollar in 2012, today, Instagram is integrated into the overall Facebook (now rebranded as Meta) business strategy. In 2018, Instagram founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger left the company as Facebook pushed toward tighter integration of the two platforms. In 2022, Instagram is the most successful product still, in Meta’s portfolio.
WhatsApp Business Model
Founded in 2009 by Brian Acton, Jan Koum WhatsApp is a messaging app acquired by Facebook in 2014 for $19B. In 2018 WhatsApp rolled out customers’ interaction services, starting to make money on slow responses from companies. And Facebook also announced conversations on WhatsApp prompted by Facebook Ads.
Related Tech Ownership Case Studies
Who Owns OpenAI
OpenAI is an artificial intelligence research laboratory that transitioned into a for-profit organization in 2019, which comprised an entity called OpenAI LP and the non-profit parent foundation OpenAI. The lab, which was founded in 2015 by Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and various others, has a core focus on the development of friendly AI that benefits society as a whole. Yet now has primarily evolved as a capped-for-profit entity with an exclusive commercial license to Microsoft.
Who Owns Airbnb
Its co-founders primarily own Airbnb: Brian Chesky, with 76,407,686 Class B shares, which gives him 29.1% of ownership; Nathan Blecharczyk, with 232,306 Class A and 64,646,713 Class B, which give him 25.3%; and Joe Gebbia, which has 5,113,865 Class A and 58,023,452 Class B, which give him 22.9% ownership.
Who Owns Google
Google is primarily owned by its founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who have more than 51% voting power. Other individual shareholders comprise John Doerr (1.5%), a venture capitalist and early investor in Google, and CEO, Sundar Pichai. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has 4.2% voting power. The most prominent institutional shareholders are mutual funds BlackRock and The Vanguard Group, with 2.7% and 3.1%, respectively.
Who Owns Facebook
Mark Zuckerberg is the largest shareholder in the company. Zuckerberg retains ownership and control of the company. Like Google, Facebook has issued two common stocks, Class A and Class B. The holders of Class B common stocks are entitled to ten votes per share, and holders of our Class A common stocks are entitled to one vote per share. Mark Zuckerberg has a voting power of 56.9%; he’s the primary decision-maker. Other individual investors comprise Sheryl Sandberg, Christopher Cox, Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, Dustin Moskovitz, and Eduardo Saverin.
Who Owns Apple
