One of the companies paying close attention to the Facebook IPO is San Francisco based Twitter. Having launched in 2006, the company is starting to mature itself in the same way that Facebook has over the past two years, business wise.
With Dick Costolo on board as Twitter’s CEO, the company is making a bee-line for media partnerships and advertisers, growing out the amount of sponsored content on the site rapidly.
During an interview with CNBC today, Benchmark Capital’s Bill Gurley shared that the company isn’t thinking about an IPO right now:
Benchmark’s @bgurley: Twitter is not thinking about IPO
— CNBC (@CNBC) February 3, 2012
Gurley and Benchmark are investors in Twitter, and his remarks are certainly timely, given that Facebook is now in its quiet period awaiting its public offering. While Twitter might not be thinking about going public at the moment, it is certainly watching how everything goes with Facebook’s attempt to raise $5B.
How it all goes for Facebook is extremely important to Twitter and its investors, as it will be the first real test of how a social property used by millions to connect with one another is received in the open market.
Even Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s letter to shareholders gave us insight on how the company will position itself for years to come. Zuckerberg mentioned Facebook’s impact on the economy and how connecting people with businesses is important for global economic growth. Those are the types of visions that publicly traded companies have to have, and it will be interesting to watch Twitter grow up and take hold of its own grand vision and path to revenue.
When it comes to vision, Twitter is in a good spot by having Jack Dorsey back in the mix as Chairman. He’s always been the one who sees Twitter as something much more than micro-blogging. Who knows, maybe we’ll see a letter from Dorsey accompanying an S-1 filing one day.
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