No Fun to be Mark

May was a mediocre month for stocks, but it was terrible for Facebook investors. After two weeks FB had fallen 22% from its IPO price. Other stocks in the social media business, like Google and Linked In, suffered losses in the single digits, while Apple, up 9%, lived in its own world. [Update - 6/1, noon PDT: the markets are down 2-3% today because of worries about Greece and a poor U.S. jobs report. Facebook is under $27.]

FB was down 22% since its IPO, despite a 5% bounce on May 31st.

We've been skeptical of Facebook's valuation ever since the prospectus was issued in February.  However, it seems to this observer that the disappointment in share performance has turned into a piling on. One thoughtful analysis places Facebook's value at $9 - $15 per share. Mark Zuckerberg has metamorphosed from being the next Steve Jobs into a symbol of Dotcom Bubble 2.0, a twenty-something billionaire more likely to captain his vessel to a shipwreck than the stars.  (Doesn't he know that he shouldn't be honeymooning while the stock price is crashing?)

Let's take a deep breath.  Steve Jobs didn't become "genius-CEO Steve Jobs" until he returned to Apple at the age of 42. Even then, it took Apple a few years to right the ship before it introduced the products that make Apple one of the most astounding business turnarounds in the last century.

The analysts who are dissecting Facebook today are extrapolating from the businesses that they know about. Those who analyzed Apple 12 years ago saw a company that made niche personal computers; their financial models didn't know about the iPod, iTunes, iPhone, or iPad.

If Mark Zuckerberg has just a fraction of Jobs-like genius--which I think he does possess--then Facebook is cooking up a few (pleasant) surprises that no one outside the company is expecting. If the price falls to $25 I'll be interested, and at $20 I'm definitely a buyer.