Facebook Inc. (FB): Could It Rebound Without Zuckerberg?

Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)

Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB), one could say, has had a rough time of it as a publicly traded company. In the span of about 90 days, the company’s IPO price was slashed in half, to $19 a share. So with that collapse being attached to the majority stockholder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg – who has run the company as if there was no board of directors to run things, as Zuckerberg has been unilateral and dictatorial in his decisions regarding the company, by many reports – for the sake of the company, should Zuckerberg care enough about his “baby” to step aside, at least for a while, in order to save Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) face?

This is often a hard sell, though the concept of a company’s founder stepping aside is not unprecedented – the same thing happened at Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) before both companies brought back their founders once the companies stabilized in the minds of investors. But in the case of Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ:FB), is it necessary to consider it, and secondly, wold Zuckerberg be the one t do it to himself?

It might be premature at this point, according to a couple of recent articles. But it is safe to say that while Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) and Zuckerberg intended to run the company without static or interference from Wall Street, the fact is the company is having to deal with Wall Street simply because Zuckerberg seemed to value his company much more highly than investors – and that is probably a wake-up call for Zuckerberg. But is time for Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) to have a “grown-up” running the company for  a while – someone who has been in the trenches with investors, run a profitable company and knows what investors and analysts want and expect from a company?

Well, by some accounts, no. Zuckerberg himself might be green at this public-company thing, but he has a couple of top lieutenants who are well-respected for their past work, COO Sheryl Sandberg and CFO David Ebersman. According to one analyst at Wedbush Securities – which admitted “hyping” the Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) IPO – there are “grown-ups” at Facebook’s decision-making table.  “The only thing that Facebook has done that is wrong is they issued way too many shares and they unlocked way too many shares and flooded the market,” Michael Pachter says. “I think they’re running the company fine.”

One hedge fund manager that must agree with that sentiment is billionaire George Soros, who recently announced that he bought a stake in the tech company. See his full Soros Fund Management portfolio.